The tech giant utilises several robots in its several hundred warehouses in order to fulfil orders and has now teamed up with robotics startup Covariant to continue "building on the artificial intelligence technology" for years to come.

Joseph Quinlivan, Vice President, Amazon Fulfillment Technologies and Robotics, said: "We’re excited to welcome some of Covariant’s talented team to Amazon and look forward to building on this technology with them to deliver the next generation of robotics that will drive forward the state-of-the-art in automation.

"With some of the smartest minds, we will advance fundamental research, marrying our rich expertise to unlock new ways for AI and robots to assist our operations employees. Imbedding Covariant’s AI technology into our existing robot fleet will make them more performant and create real world value for our customers."

Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, Rocky Duan, and a group of research scientists and engineers (around a quarter of Covariant’s current employees) will join Amazon’s Fulfillment Technologies Robotics Team to help drive the development and implementation of Covariant’s technology within Amazon’s operations and continue to develop innovative AI solutions.