Amazon to spend $1 billion on startups that combine AI with robots

Enlarge / Digit, a bipedal robot, is being tested at an Amazon facility in the US. (credit: Financial Times)

Amazon’s $1 billion industrial innovation fund is to step up investments in companies that combine artificial intelligence and robotics, as the ecommerce giant seeks to drive efficiencies across its logistics network.

Franziska Bossart, head of the corporate venture capital arm that was set up in 2022, told the Financial Times that “generative AI holds a lot of promise for robotics and automation” and is an area “we are going to focus on this year.”

She added that the fund’s pace of investment would “absolutely” accelerate in 2024. It made its first investment in a generative AI company last year, the details of which have not been disclosed.