Amazon has unveiled a new iteration of its mobile warehouse robot Proteus, as part of a $11.6 billion investment into its European operations.
The vendor showcased its newly updated robot at its “Delivering the Future” event at its Dartford fulfillment center near London earlier this week.
While previous models operate solely in dock areas, the new version can operate across warehouse floors. Employees can now instruct Proteus using natural-language, text-based prompts, without requiring technical commands or programming interfaces.
Based on the prompt, Proteus determines how to complete the task and which steps to prioritize.
“You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing,” Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, said in a release your assistant for material movement.”
The new Proteus, currently being piloted in Amazon’s labs, is due to be available in Europe in the first half of 2027.
The robot comes as part of Amazon’s plan to expand and modernize fulfillment centers across Europe over the next few years
Expanding Amazon’s Robotics Footprint
Proteus is part of Amazon’s broader robotics strategy that includes new collaborative systems and advances in robotic manipulation.
Among the technologies being expanded is STARK, a tote-handling robotic system that was first piloted in Barcelona. Now, Amazon plans to roll the system out across 15 European sites by 2027.
Amazon is also expanding Vulcan, its first robotic system with a sense of touch. The robot can both see and feel objects, enabling it to navigate densely packed storage environments and perform more complex picking tasks.
Initially developed for a facility in Spokane, Washington, Vulcan has since been deployed at Amazon’s Hamburg site in Germany.
As part of its European expansion plans, Amazon said it will add 25,000 fulfillment center jobs in the coming years. Some of these roles will fill new job requirements created by expanded robotics use, including maintenance, engineering and reliability roles.
