Amazon is fortifying its supply chain network across Europe with a 10-billion-euro ($11.6 billion) investment aimed at speeding up shipping and upgrading its fulfillment centers.
The e-commerce giant plans to grow its European fulfillment workforce by 25,000 employees in the coming years, and support the labor expansion with more automation technologies including a newer version of its autonomous mobile robot, Proteus.
Amazon did not say where the bulk of the jobs would be hired. But the online marketplace noted that since it introduced robotics into its operations, it developed a reliability, maintenance and engineering division dedicated to working on the technology.
At its “Delivering the Future” event held at its Dartford fulfillment center east of London, the Seattle-based firm showcased three robotics technologies: Proteus, Stark and Vulcan.
While the original Proteus operates in dock areas within 25 U.S. fulfillment centers to transport heavy carts that weigh as much as 850 pounds, the new system can work anywhere items need to be moved. This includes moving containers as they arrive at a site, transferring them between workstations and assisting employees across Amazon’s fulfillment centers and delivery sites.
The new version of Proteus is currently being piloted in Amazon’s labs, with deployment in Europe planned for the first half of 2027.
The autonomous bot is designed to understand natural language and conversational prompts, enabling employees to talk to Proteus in the same way they’d communicate with a colleague, rather than using technical commands.
“You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing,” said Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, in a statement. “It becomes your assistant for material movement.”
Amazon is also introducing Stark, a collaborative robotic tote-handling system that works side by side with employees. Stark’s robotic arm picks full totes from conveyors and places them on carts to relieve workers of tasks that require repetitive heavy lifting.
First piloted in Barcelona, Spain, Stark is planned to expand to 15 sites across Europe by 2027.
The facilities will also expand the use of Vulcan, Amazon’s first robot developed with a sense of touch. Originally developed for a facility in Spokane, Wash., Vulcan can see and feel objects simultaneously to navigate densely packed environments. The robot uses sensors to pick and stow approximately 75 percent of all various types of items store at the company’s fulfillment centers, Amazon says, at speeds comparable to that the company’s frontline employees.
Since its pilot launch, Vulcan has expanded to handle more complex picking tasks at Amazon’s Hamburg facility in Germany.
In line with the robotics developments, Amazon is expanding its same-day delivery capabilities across Europe with new sub-same-day delivery sites. The company plans to reach more than 25 locations in municipalities like Coventry in the U.K., and Nürnberg in Germany.
Customers can order as late as 5 p.m. and still receive items by 10 p.m. the same day. Amazon enables the later order cutoff times and faster delivery speeds by holding a wide range of popular products on site and picking and packing them in the same building before drivers depart directly to nearby customers.
The technology is already being used across the U.S. and in several main cities in Europe, including London, Berlin, Munich, Madrid and Milan, enabling more orders to ship from a single local site.
Amazon wants to make the delivery process even faster, building out its “ultra-fast” 30-minutes-or-less Amazon Now delivery service throughout new markets in the U.K. Already available in parts of London, there are now plans to expand to Manchester and Birmingham this year.
To get orders to customers in minutes, Amazon Now uses a network of micro-fulfillment centers that are strategically positioned near residential and inner-city areas. This setup is designed to keep employees safe as they pick and pack orders, minimize travel distances for delivery partners and enable the rapid delivery speeds customers expect.
Amazon is introducing its “Add to Delivery” button beyond U.S. soil to reach customers across Europe, rolling out later this year in the U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and France. The feature allows Prime members to add items to existing orders in just a few clicks, without needing to go through checkout a second time. The items arrive in the same delivery at no extra cost.
In February, the company said the feature made up about 10 percent of all Prime volume fulfilled through the Amazon network each week.
In 2025, Amazon invested more than 60 billion euros ($69.7 billion) across Europe, the largest annual investment in the company’s history in the region.
