Amazon has over 1 million robots; study finds fewer severe injuries but more strain injuries at robotic sites

Amazon runs more than 1 million robots in its warehouses and also employs more than 1.5 million people, and an Ars Technica feature published on 12 October 2026 looks at what that means for the humans working alongside them. Most of the fleet is still wheeled mobile robots, but Amazon is adding robotic arms, which it describes as currently in the single-digit thousands. Amazon says foundation models let its Sparrow arm handle a huge variety of products. Its newest arm, Vulcan, combines vision with touch sensing and is expected to scale up in 2027. The evidence on workers is mixed. A study in the journal ILR Review, published in April 2025, found Amazon's robotic warehouses had a 40 percent decrease in severe injuries compared with older sites, but a 77 percent increase in less severe strain injuries. Co-author Brad Greenwood of George Mason University told Ars this appears linked to faster pick rates, with the robot setting the pace of work. The study's data covers 2016 to 2019. A union coalition and a 2024 US Senate committee report also linked robotics to higher injury rates; Amazon calls those reports flawed and based on older data, and says its recordable incident rate has improved 43 percent since 2019.