Amazon announces new robotics, faster delivery expansion in Europe, and $1 billion in employee upskilling

Key takeaways Amazon is investing more than €10 billion to expand and modernize European fulfillment centers with new robotics and will add 25,000 more jobs. Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery is expanding internationally, primarily in India and the UK.

Amazon is investing $1 billion in employee career upskilling through fully funded education and training programs.

Amazon has announced a series of investments and innovations designed to support employee upskilling, speed up deliveries internationally, modernize and expand its European operations network, create more jobs across the region, and introduce cutting-edge new robotics.

The announcements, made at the company's Delivering the Future event in London, include a more than €10 billion commitment to expand and upgrade fulfillment centers in Europe with next-generation robotics, the expansion of ultra-fast delivery options to more international cities, and a major global investment in employee upskilling through Career Choice.

These investments reflect Amazon's broader push to use AI and robotics to support its workforce by taking on repetitive and physically demanding tasks so employees can focus on higher-skilled roles while customers get their orders faster.

Amazon reveals next-generation Proteus robot The next-generation Proteus robot can now operate anywhere across Amazon fulfillment sites, taking direction from employees through conversational prompts. The next generation of Amazon's autonomous Proteus robot can now operate anywhere items need to be moved across sites—not just in dock areas.

Using advances in AI, employees can now direct Proteus with plain, conversational text-based prompts without the need for technical commands or programming interfaces. An employee tells it what needs to be done, and the robot figures out the priority, the route, and the timing. I'm Amazon's first autonomous robot.

Follow me around on my typical workday (watercooler break included). Get a special peek at how I help process your packages, while helping my (human) co-workers work better, too. Like its predecessor, the new Proteus is designed to take on physically demanding tasks, moving heavy carts and covering long distances.

This means employees can focus on work like managing inventory flow and ensuring quality control across Amazon's fulfillment network. It is currently being piloted in Amazon's labs, with deployment in Europe planned for the first half of 2027.

Robotics modernization and investment in Europe STARK is Amazon's collaborative robotic tote-handling system, designed to handle individual objects with precision.

Amazon is investing more than €10 billion over the coming years to expand and modernize fulfillment centers across Europe, expanding its robotics capabilities to support employees and improve operations.

The investment includes the expansion of Vulcan, Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch, and STARK, a new robotic system that works alongside employees to pick full totes from conveyors and place them on carts. Amazon plans to expand STARK, which was first piloted in Barcelona, Spain, to 15 sites across Europe by 2027.

As part of this investment, Amazon plans to grow its European fulfillment center workforce by 25,000 over the coming years, creating more new jobs across the region and investing in the long-term careers of operations employees.

Amazon commits $1 billion to Career Choice globally The Career Choice investment supports students, employees, and those looking to expand their skills. Amazon is committing $1 billion to Career Choice by 2030, a centerpiece of the $2. 5 billion Future Ready 2030 initiative.

More than 300,000 employees have already participated in Career Choice globally, including 30,000 in the UK. The program focuses on high-growth careers in cybersecurity, software development, logistics, renewable energy, and mechatronics.

The expanded investment means more people will have access to fully funded training for careers in these high-demand fields. Amazon has invested €60 billion in Europe In 2025, Amazon invested more than €60 billion across Europe—the largest annual investment in the company's history in the region. Amazon supports more than 1.

5 million jobs across Europe today. Of those, 230,000 are Amazon employees, 400,000+ are part of our extended workforce that includes contractors and seasonal employees, and more than 600,000 were created by the 200,000+ European small businesses and entrepreneurs who sell through Amazon.

Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery expanding to more cities Amazon Now, the company's ultra-fast delivery service offering thousands of groceries and essentials in 30 minutes or less, is expanding across the U. S. and the rest of the world. Amazon Now is already available in parts of London and there are plans to expand to Manchester and Birmingham this year.

To get orders to customers in minutes, Amazon Now uses a network of micro fulfillme