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Report: Amazon plans for robots to ride along in vans and bring packages to your doorstep

Robots, robots, everywhere.

Elon Musk thinks his Tesla Optimus bipedal humanoid robots will be a $10 trillion industry. Nvidia is making a huge bet on building the AI tools and hardware to power industrial robots.

Now Amazon is also working on humanoid robots to further replace its human workers, both in its fulfillment centers and also to pop out of Amazon delivery trucks to carry boxes to your doorstep, according to The Information.

Amazon is testing humanoid robots in an “obstacle park” and trying out different robotics platforms to help build a foundational AI model of the work done by Amazon warehouse workers. It’s using the DeepSeek-VL2 LLM for the training, the report says.

Amazon was an early pioneer in industrial robots, and today it uses significant automation in its massively complex fulfillment centers, employing swarms of short, square robots that ferry shelves full of good to human pickers.

But the report indicates that Amazon envisions fleets of humanoid robots hitching rides on the company’s Rivian electric delivery trucks (with human drivers, for now) to schlep packages from the truck to your doorstep (and maybe snap those useless photos?).

Dealing with the chaos of real-world obstacles would be significantly more challenging than the tightly controlled industrial environment of a warehouse.

Now Amazon is also working on humanoid robots to further replace its human workers, both in its fulfillment centers and also to pop out of Amazon delivery trucks to carry boxes to your doorstep, according to The Information.

Amazon is testing humanoid robots in an “obstacle park” and trying out different robotics platforms to help build a foundational AI model of the work done by Amazon warehouse workers. It’s using the DeepSeek-VL2 LLM for the training, the report says.

Amazon was an early pioneer in industrial robots, and today it uses significant automation in its massively complex fulfillment centers, employing swarms of short, square robots that ferry shelves full of good to human pickers.

But the report indicates that Amazon envisions fleets of humanoid robots hitching rides on the company’s Rivian electric delivery trucks (with human drivers, for now) to schlep packages from the truck to your doorstep (and maybe snap those useless photos?).

Dealing with the chaos of real-world obstacles would be significantly more challenging than the tightly controlled industrial environment of a warehouse.

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Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

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Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

Apple Store in China

Apple reports Q4 earnings and revenue slightly above Wall Street estimates

The iPhone maker reported its FY 25 fourth-quarter earnings Thursday.

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