Amazon’s new warehouse robot is heading to Europe in the first half of 2027, as the company expands its Proteus automation system beyond dock areas and into warehouse floors. The announcement was tied to a €10 billion investment in Amazon’s European fulfilment network, underscoring how the company is pairing faster delivery with more software and fewer human handoffs.
The announcement came at Amazon’s ”Delivering the Future” event in Dartford, east of London, where the company also showed off other automation projects and broader delivery plans. Amazon is clearly trying to make the same point from several angles: it wants the warehouses quicker, the routing smarter, and the last mile tighter, even if that means turning robots into better listeners.
Proteus gets conversational controls
The current Proteus robots are already at work in 25 U.S. sites, but they are limited to dock areas and can move carts weighing up to nearly 400 kg. The new version, due in Europe in the first half of 2027, is designed to operate across warehouse floors, which is the more ambitious part of the story.
That shift matters because it changes the human-robot relationship from fixed-task automation to something closer to a warehouse assistant that can decide its own route and timing. Amazon Robotics vice president Scott Dresser put it bluntly: ”You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing.”
STARK and Vulcan join the show
Proteus was not the only machine on display. Amazon also highlighted STARK, a robotic tote-handling system first piloted in Barcelona and set to roll out to 15 European sites by 2027, as well as Vulcan, which Amazon describes as its first robot with a sense of touch.
- Proteus: next-generation mobile robot, Europe debut due in the first half of 2027
- STARK: tote-handling system, first piloted in Barcelona, heading to 15 European sites by 2027
- Vulcan: Amazon’s first robot with a sense of touch
This is familiar Amazon territory. The company has spent years building a warehouse stack that blends robotics, routing software, and ultra-fast delivery promises, while rivals such as Walmart and Ocado keep chasing their own automation advantages. The difference now is scale: Amazon is pushing AI deeper into the physical warehouse just as capital spending across the tech sector keeps climbing.
Amazon expands sub-same-day delivery in Europe
Amazon said it will launch more than 25 sub-same-day delivery sites across Europe this year, including in Britain and Germany. Amazon Now, its ultra-fast essentials delivery service, will expand to Manchester and Birmingham in Britain, while same-day delivery for fresh groceries is already available in more than 2,300 U.S. cities and parts of Tokyo.
The company also said Alexa+, its next-generation AI assistant, will launch in 10 additional countries in 2027. That bundle of announcements is classic Amazon: attach shiny AI to logistics, then use logistics to make the AI look useful.
In February, Amazon forecast a more than 50% jump in capital expenditure to $200 billion this year as it joins other giants in the spending race around AI infrastructure. The open question is less about whether Amazon can afford the bet than whether its European network can absorb all this automation quickly enough to make the promise of faster delivery feel normal rather than experimental.