Amazon is testing humanoid robots in its US warehouses in the latest sign of the tech giant automating its operations.
Amazon said the move "frees up employees to better deliver for our customers."
They are testing a new robot called Digit with arms and legs. It moves objects in a human-like manner. He said he could grasp and handle.
A union says Amazon has treated their workers like robots for years.
"Amazon's automation is the first competition for job losses. We have already seen hundreds of jobs disappear in fulfillment centres," said Stuart Richards, an organizer at UK trade union GMB.
At the time of the announcement, Amazon said its robotic systems could "create hundreds of new jobs" within its operations.
"This business includes 700 new job categories in skilled roles that the company did not previously have," the company said.
According to the tech giant, it now has more than 750,000 robots working alongside human employees, often used to perform repetitive tasks.
Amazon promises parcels within an hour using drones.
The US has accused Amazon of an illegal monopoly.
Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said at a media briefing in Seattle that people are "irreplaceable" and disputed the suggestion that the company could have fully automated warehouses in the future.
"There was no part of me that thought it was going to be a reality," he said.
"People are so central to the fulfillment process, the ability to think at a higher level, to identify problems."
Legs are not wheels.
Instead of using wheels to move, Digit walks on two legs. It includes packages, containers, Contains arms that can pick up and move customer orders and objects.
Amazon Robotics' Scott Dresser told the BBC that it "allowed us to deal with stairs or places where we need to move up and down."
But he said the robot is a prototype and a test of whether it can work safely with human employees.
"This is an experiment we're doing to learn a little bit more about how we can use mobile robots and manipulators in our environment here at Amazon," he said.
