Amazon unveils latest robots and AI systems to work alongside staff across Yorkshire
Amazon has unveiled its latest hi-tech improvements which it says will benefit its staff.
The company, which employs 75,000 people in Britain and has bases across Yorkshire, says its newest operations technologies include Blue Jay, a system co-ordinating multiple robotic arms, and Project Eluna, an AI model helping operators make more informed decisions.
Blue Jay and Project Eluna work alongside operations employees to create safer and more efficient workspaces. These advanced innovations build on several recent AI and automation breakthroughs for its operations, such as Vulcan and DeepFleet.
An Amazon spokesman said every time it innovates across its operations network, it starts with a simple question: “How can we make work safer, smarter, and more rewarding for our employees?”
Just ahead of this year’s busiest shopping season, two new systems – Blue Jay and Project Eluna – help answer that question. These systems combine robotics and AI to reduce physically demanding tasks, simplify decisions, and open new career opportunities for the employees who keep Amazon moving.
Tye Brady, chief technologist for Amazon Robotics, told The Yorkshire Post at a conference in San Francisco: “Our latest innovations are great examples of how we’re using AI and robotics to create an even better experience for our employees and customers.
“The goal is to make technology the most practical, the most powerful tool it can be – so that work becomes safer, smarter, and more rewarding.”
Blue Jay and Project Eluna build on recent advances like Vulcan and DeepFleet, extending Amazon’s approach to physical AI – technology that learns from contact, co-ordinates at scale, and supports people in the real world.
Blue Jay described is an extra set of hands that helps employees with tasks that involve reaching and lifting. It is a next-generation robotics system that co-ordinates multiple robotic arms to perform many tasks at once, collapsing what used to be three separate robotic stations into one streamlined workspace that can pick, stow, and consolidate in a single place.
Blue Jay’s development moved from concept to production in just over a year – a process that formerly took three or more years for earlier Amazon systems like Robin, Cardinal, or Sparrow.
Years of trial-and-error were condensed into months of development thanks to advancements in AI. Its engineers were able to iterate on dozens of prototypes for Blue Jay with the use of digital twins.
These are an advanced form of simulation that now allow Amazon to experiment virtually, using real physics to accelerate what it builds.
Project Eluna is an agentic AI system – which means it is designed to act with a degree of autonomy, reasoning through complex operational situations and recommending actions to operators.
Project Eluna will be piloted at a fulfillment center in Tennessee to assist operators during the holiday season, working initially on optimising sorting.