Amazon plans to deploy robots to automate 600,000 human roles: Report

The Times report indicates that Amazon is developing and deploying more advanced robots primarily to meet rising demand without increasing its headcount.

Crucially, the internal documents also reveal a plan to manage the resulting social fallout: Amazon aims to cultivate an image as a "good corporate citizen" through community engagement. To control the public narrative, the company explicitly discusses substituting terms like "automation" and "AI" with "advanced technology," and using "cobot" instead of "robot" to frame the change as collaboration, the Times report said. 

However, the company refutes these charges to CNET. 

"Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that's the case here," an Amazon spokesperson told CNET in an email. "In this instance, the materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don't represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines -- now or moving forward." 

The spokesperson further told CNET, "No company has created more jobs in America over the past decade than Amazon," and that the company is actively hiring at operations facilities, with plans to fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season. 

The automation plan, according to several media reports, extends beyond warehouses. According to a report in The Economic Times, insiders claim Amazon is exploring AI-driven logistics and delivery operations, including self-driving delivery vehicles and drone shipping programs. Together, these technologies could streamline the company's supply chain — but they could also disrupt tens of thousands of traditional delivery jobs in the coming decade. 

Amazon is one of the largest employers in the US, trailing only the federal government and Walmart, with an estimated 1.5 million employees, primarily operating in its warehouses and delivery network.