Amazon is bringing Pieter Abbeel, a leading Belgian AI expert, and a large part of his team on board to further automate and robotise its warehouses.
‘ChatGPT for robots’
Amazon is entering into a strategic partnership (and quasi-acquisition) with Covariant, a US tech company specialising in AI for warehouse robots. Three of the founders, including Belgian Pieter Abbeel, a quarter of the staff and the necessary product licences will all come into the hands of the Seattle-based e-commerce giant.
Covariant wants to use artificial intelligence to make robots, especially logistics robots, ever more skilful and efficient. The ‘ChatGPT for robots’ should make it possible for industrial robots to perform very precise tasks, from taking products off the shelf to picking and packing orders. Amazon has long been experimenting with warehouse robots, primarily to take over heavy and unsafe tasks from employees, but there is increasing scope for automation.
