Amazon’s $1 Billion Innovation Fund Looking for AI Startups

Amazon plans to speculate extra closely in startups that deliver synthetic intelligence to robots this 12 months.

Franziska Bossart, the pinnacle of Amazon’s $1 billion industrial innovation fund, instructed the Financial Times on Wednesday that Amazon will concentrate on generative AI investments this 12 months, particularly on startups that mix generative AI with robotics to assist Amazon’s broader enterprise targets. Automating logistics at its warehouses continues to be a precedence for the corporate.

“This 12 months, we need to additional set up the Fund as a enterprise investor of alternative for revolutionary startups of all sizes inside the robotics, achievement, and logistics house,” Bossart said in a press release. She additional disclosed that AI advances are serving to the corporate automate a “broader vary” of duties.

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For instance, Amazon introduced a pilot with Agility Robotics final 12 months to check the corporate’s bipedal robotic in its warehouses.

^{Agility Robotics’ bipedal robotic in motion. Credit score: Amazon}

Bossart instructed the Monetary Occasions that automation via new {hardware} and software program would not minimize individuals out solely, however relatively shift jobs away from harmful or repetitive duties.

“We’re additionally a good distance off from changing all people,” Bossart instructed the outlet.

Bossart separately said that Amazon’s innovation fund would increase its investments to autonomous transportation this 12 months, although different firms seem like taking a unique route. Apple, for instance, scrapped a decade-long project to create an autonomous, all-electric automobile on Tuesday.

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Amazon’s innovation fund, which was founded in 2022, strives to assist startups creating automation instruments for warehouses. It immediately invests in startups, and at present has 10 listed portfolio companies, seven of that are within the robotics business.

To use for the fund, visit here.