Amazon has shut down its Blue Jay warehouse robotics project less than six months after introducing it, according to a Business Insider report later confirmed by TechCrunch.
What’s Related
Blue Jay was unveiled in October as a multi-armed robot designed to sort and move packages inside Amazon’s same-day delivery facilities. The technology combined what had previously been three separate robotic stations into one workspace. At the time, the company said it had developed the robot in about a year, much faster than earlier systems, and credited advances in AI for speeding up the process. The robot was being tested at a facility in South Carolina.
Now, the project has been halted, though Amazon is pushing back somewhat on that characterization. People familiar with the effort cited high cost, manufacturing complexity, and implementation challenges as reasons Blue Jay was ultimately put on pause. An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that Blue Jay was launched as a prototype.
“We’re always experimenting with new ways to improve the customer experience and make work safer, more efficient, and more engaging for our employees,” Clark told TechCrunch over email. “In this case, we’re actually accelerating the use of the underlying technology developed for Blue Jay, and nearly all of the technologies are being carried over and will continue to support employees across our network.”
Employees who worked on Blue Jay are being reassigned to other robotics projects, and Amazon said the core technology will be used in other “manipulation programs.”
The shutdown comes as Amazon continues to expand automation across its fulfillment network. The company said last July that it had surpassed 1 million robots operating in its warehouses. Amazon’s robotics push dates back to 2012, when it acquired Kiva Systems, whose technology became the foundation of its automated fulfillment operations.
Amazon also introduced another robot, Vulcan, last year. Vulcan is a two-armed system used in storage compartments. One arm rearranges items, while the other uses a camera and suction cups to pick up products. Amazon has said Vulcan can “feel” the objects it touches and was trained using real-world interaction data.
