Amazon pours hundreds of millions into fully automated delivery stations powered by AI and robotics

Amazon is building what it calls the “delivery station of the future,” a facility designed to handle packages with minimal human intervention. The first one is expected to go live in 2026, capping off a multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar investment in automating the last mile of its logistics empire.

The robots are already here, and multiplying

Amazon hit a significant milestone in mid-2025 when it deployed its one millionth robot. That figure spans fulfillment centers, sortation facilities, and delivery stations globally, making Amazon one of the largest operators of industrial robotics on the planet.

Among the more notable systems is Cardinal, a robotic arm designed to pick up packages and stack them into containers with spatial efficiency that mirrors a Tetris board. The system determines optimal placement based on package dimensions and weight, reducing wasted space and speeding up the loading process for delivery vans.

On the software side, the company developed an AI model called DeepFleet to manage robotic coordination across facilities. DeepFleet optimizes travel paths for fleets of autonomous machines, improving their collective efficiency by roughly 10%. In a warehouse where thousands of robots operate simultaneously, a 10% improvement in movement efficiency compounds into meaningful gains in throughput and energy consumption.

Europe as the testing ground

Amazon has invested more than €700 million in delivery station technology across Europe between 2021 and 2025. That spending covers facility construction, robotic hardware, and the software infrastructure needed to tie everything together.

Amazon has also been experimenting with humanoid robots for delivery-related tasks, potentially pairing them with electric delivery vans from Rivian. The company ordered 100,000 custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian in a deal announced years ago.

Why automation is a competitive necessity

Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people globally, many of them in warehouse and delivery roles. Amazon’s Shreveport, Louisiana fulfillment center, which launched with advanced automation capabilities in 2024, offers an early look at how these hybrid facilities operate.

Amazon’s €700 million European investment, spread over four years, is substantial but modest relative to the company’s overall capital expenditure budget, which routinely exceeds $50 billion annually.

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