Amazon’s warehouse robots are starting to sound less like machines waiting for commands and more like coworkers taking direction.
At its Delivering the Future event in London, Amazon unveiled an upgraded version of Proteus that can interpret natural-language instructions and turn them into coordinated material-movement tasks. The update is part of a broader European robotics push that includes new deployments, a planned €10 billion investment, and a 25,000-person workforce expansion.
The shift points to a bigger change inside Amazon’s fulfillment network: robots are not just getting stronger or faster. They are becoming more flexible, more autonomous, and more deeply woven into the way warehouse work is planned.
A new kind of Proteus
According to a company news release, Proteus is one of Amazon’s most useful robots.
As one of the company’s top fulfillment-center robots, it handles one of the most important and physically demanding tasks in those facilities: moving carts weighing up to 800 pounds. Additionally, it is equipped with sensors that enable it to operate autonomously, a feature many fulfillment-center robots lack.
Now, Amazon is taking its capabilities a step further by unveiling a version that not only handles materials but can also understand instructions delivered in everyday language. The result is a system that behaves less like a machine waiting for commands and more like a collaborative assistant capable of understanding objectives and acting on them.
Speaking at the Delivering the Future event in London, Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, noted that when you tell Proteus what to do, “it figures out the priority, the route, [and] the timing,” effectively turning it into “your assistant for material movement.”
The robot is currently operational in 25 fulfillment centers in the US, and an upgraded version will roll out to European centers within the first half of next year.
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Other robots deployed across European sites
The company also unveiled STARK, a robot designed to lift heavy totes from conveyor systems and place them into carts for transport.
Alongside the new deployments, Amazon is also expanding the reach of Vulcan, a robot that has already been operating within its network. The robot’s core focus is on handling items that require extensive care. Using a combination of vision systems and tactile sensing, it can identify, grasp, and handle items with greater precision while reducing the risk of damage.
STARK was first unveiled in Barcelona, Spain, and will roll out to 15 fulfillment centers across Europe by 2027. Vulcan began in Spokane, Washington, and, according to Amazon, has already expanded into a facility in Hamburg, Germany, from where it is likely to spread to additional European sites.
Amazon’s bigger commitment
The robotics rollout is only one piece of Amazon’s broader plans for Europe.
In its announcement, the company also said it intends to increase its European workforce by 25,000 over the coming years. That workforce expansion plan stands out against the backdrop of workforce reductions implemented this year as part of a broader organizational restructuring.
Amazon has also emphasized that the introduction of these advanced robots is not intended to replace human workers. Instead, the company says the systems are designed to handle repetitive or physically demanding tasks while employees focus on work that requires human judgment and oversight.
Supporting both workforce expansion and the deployment of new robotics systems is Amazon’s plan to invest €10 billion, or about $11.6 billion, across its European operations over the coming years.
Also read: The expansion comes as Amazon prepares for Prime Day 2026, its four-day shopping event running June 23-26.
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