Amazon confirms its latest warehouse robot uses AI to handle millions of items

Amazon has taken to its website to unveil the newest addition to its warehouse automation process - introducing Sparrow, Amazon's new artificial intelligence-driven robot.

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Sparrow is Amazon's latest warehouse robot that is designed to manage specific inventory. According to the company, Sparrow is its very first robotic system in our warehouse that "can detect, select, and handle individual products in our inventory." Amazon explains that Sparrow leverages an artificial intelligence system that has been fed millions of items giving it the ability to recognize these items, pick them up, and place them into the desired location.

Amazon writes that by introducing more robots into its warehouses, it's able to perform operations in a much more efficient manner as well as much more safely. Furthermore, the company said that employing robots its been able to create more than 700 new job categories at the company.

"These new types of roles, which employ tens of thousands of people across Amazon, help tangibly demonstrate the positive impact technology and robotics can have for our employees and for our workplace. Supporting our employees and helping them transition and advance their career into roles working with our technology is an important part of how we will continue to innovate," wrote Amazon.

"Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, enabling our employees to focus their time and energy on other things, while also advancing safety. At the same time, Sparrow will help us drive efficiency by automating a critical part of our fulfillment process so we can continue to deliver for customers," said Amazon.