Amazon gives its warehouse robots ability to understand plain English

Amazon has unveiled a smarter version of its Proteus warehouse robot that understands plain English instructions, as part of a major European expansion that includes €10 billion in investments.

In Short

• Amazon's new Proteus robot can understand plain-language instructions instead
• The company is investing over €10 billion in Europe, creating 25,000 jobs
• Amazon is also scaling ultra-fast delivery services and rolling out new same-day delivery capabilities

Amazon has unveiled a new version of its warehouse robot, Proteus, that can understand and act on plain English instructions. The announcement was made at Amazon's Delivering the Future event in London, where the company also revealed plans to invest more than €10 billion in expanding and modernising its European operations over the coming years. As part of the initiative, Amazon said it expects to create around 25,000 jobs across the region, expand its ultra-fast delivery services internationally, and invest $1 billion in employee upskilling through its Career Choice programme by 2030.

Unlike traditional industrial robots that rely on specialised commands or programming interfaces, the next-generation Proteus is designed to understand conversational language. Amazon says warehouse employees will be able to assign tasks to the robot much as they would to a colleague. Instead of manually programming routes or workflows, workers can simply tell the robot what needs to be done, while Proteus determines the priority, route and timing on its own.

The launch is also part of Amazon's broader push to make AI-powered systems easier to use inside its warehouses. Proteus was first introduced in 2022 as Amazon's first fully autonomous mobile robot capable of safely operating around employees. The updated version significantly expands those capabilities by enabling natural language interactions and extending the robot's operational range across fulfilment centres and delivery sites.

According to Amazon, the new Proteus is no longer limited to dock areas. The robot can now work wherever items need to be moved within a facility. Its responsibilities include transporting containers as they arrive at a site, moving them between workstations and assisting employees with material-handling tasks throughout fulfilment centres. Amazon says the robot is particularly suited to physically demanding work, such as moving heavy carts over long distances, helping to reduce repetitive strain on workers.

“There is a major shift in how employees interact with it,” Amazon said, noting that advances in AI enable Proteus to understand natural language prompts. Scott Dresser, Vice President of Amazon Robotics, described the robot as an assistant for material movement. “You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing,” he said during the announcement.

The company said Proteus is currently being piloted in Amazon's robotics labs, with deployment across European operations planned for the first half of 2027. The rollout will form part of Amazon's wider €10 billion investment programme aimed at modernising fulfilment operations and increasing efficiency across the region. Amazon also said the investment will support the creation of around 25,000 new jobs in its European fulfilment network over the coming years.

Alongside Proteus, Amazon announced the expansion of other robotics projects. These include Vulcan, the company's first robot with a sense of touch, and STARK, a collaborative tote-handling robot designed to work alongside employees. STARK, which was first piloted in Barcelona, is expected to expand to 15 sites across Europe by 2027. Vulcan, meanwhile, uses sensors that allow it to see and feel objects simultaneously, helping it navigate densely packed storage environments and perform more complex picking tasks.

- Ends