Leaked Amazon documents describe robots avoiding 600,000 US hires. Amazon says they reflect one team.

Previously

In May and July 2025, Amazon announced Vulcan, a robot with a sense of touch, its millionth warehouse robot and DeepFleet, an AI model to route its fleet. Every performance figure was Amazon's own (Part 1).

October 2025 — Internal documents reported by the New York Times put numbers on what Amazon's robots could mean for hiring. Here's what changed since Part 1 (July 2025), what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of October 2025)

US hires avoided by 2033: more than 600,000, per internal documents reported by the New York Times. (The Verge)
US roles not needed by 2027: 160,000, per the same documents. (The Verge)
Projected savings: $12.6 billion from 2025 to 2027, about 30 cents per item, per the documents. (The Verge)
Holiday hiring: 250,000 positions, per Amazon. (The Verge)
Cost of the robots: not disclosed.

Editor's note: The New York Times reported that internal documents show Amazon aims to avoid more than 600,000 US hires by 2033. Amazon says the documents reflect one team's view, not its hiring strategy. We present both, so what the documents mean for hiring is marked Disputed ✕ below.

The documents

On Oct. 21, the New York Times reported, citing interviews and internal strategy documents, that Amazon hopes robots can replace more than 600,000 jobs it would otherwise need to fill in the US by 2033, while selling about twice as many products, The Verge's Jess Weatherbed summarized. The documents reportedly show the robotics team working toward automating 75% of operations and expecting 160,000 US roles not to be needed by 2027.

The Times also reported Amazon had considered avoiding terms like "automation" and "AI," exploring "advanced technology" and "cobot" instead.

Amazon's response

Disputed Nantel said the documents reflect the perspective of one team and don't represent the company's hiring strategy "now or moving forward." "Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that's the case here," she said. "We're actively hiring at operations facilities across the country and recently announced plans to fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season." Amazon told the Times that its executives are not being instructed to avoid certain terms when referring to robotics, and that its community involvement is unrelated to its automation plans, The Verge reported.

"Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate," Daron Acemoglu, the Nobel-winning economist, told the Times. He added that if Amazon reaches its goal, "one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator."

The next robots

On Oct. 22, Amazon introduced Blue Jay, which coordinates multiple robotic arms to pick, stow and consolidate in one workspace, replacing what used to be three separate stations. Amazon said Blue Jay was being tested at a facility in South Carolina, handling about 75% of the item types it stores, and moved from concept to production in just over a year, which it credited to AI and "digital twins," simulations used to test dozens of prototypes.

It also announced Project Eluna, an agentic AI system to recommend actions to operations managers, to be piloted at a Tennessee fulfillment center on sortation this holiday season. Amazon's example question for it: "Where should we shift people to avoid a bottleneck?" "The real headline isn't about robots," said Tye Brady, chief technologist for Amazon Robotics. "It's about people—and the future of work we're building together."

What's changed

In July, Amazon talked about robots helping workers. In October, its own documents, as reported, put a number on hires the robots could avoid, and Amazon disputed what that number means.

What went wrong

The plan leaked before it was explained. Amazon's public account and its reported documents don't match.
The numbers can't be checked. The documents aren't public, and Amazon gives no counter-figures.
New robots, same 75%. Blue Jay's item coverage matches Vulcan's, again per Amazon only.
What we don't know yet: how many hires automation has already displaced, and what Blue Jay and Eluna cost.

Our follow-up question for Amazon

If the documents don't reflect company strategy, what does Amazon project for US warehouse hiring through 2027?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

On Feb. 25, 2026, Amazon added an update to its Blue Jay post: "Amazon is no longer utilizing Blue Jay in operations." It said the underlying technology "will continue to support employees across our network." It didn't say why. We haven't found an update on Project Eluna's pilot.

Sources

Jess Weatherbed, The Verge, “Amazon hopes to replace 600,000 US workers with robots, according to leaked documents,” Oct. 21, 2025, summarizing the New York Times. theverge.com
The New York Times, report on Amazon's internal automation documents, Oct. 21, 2025 (paywalled; not reviewed directly; headline not confirmed). nytimes.com
Amazon, “Introducing Blue Jay and Project Eluna, Amazon's latest robotics and AI technology for its operations,” Oct. 22, 2025, updated Feb. 25, 2026. aboutamazon.com
Earlier in this series: Part 1. /case/amazon-warehouse-robots-vulcan-deepfleet

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder