Walmart's billion-dollar warehouse robots can't handle real-world work, WSJ reports
ZehanWang · x · 2026-10-18
Per WSJ, Walmart's multi-billion-dollar warehouse automation push is struggling: wheeled robots in a dozen-plus warehouses can't lift heavy items like dog food bags and break down often. The pay of mechanical/electrical engineers running automated warehouses now exceeds that of the warehouse workers they replace. Amazon is pushing similarly, creating an "arms race." ZehanWang draws the lesson: a "deployment first" approach — ship early, face the chaos, iterate on reality.
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