In this articleFDXUPSDPW-DEFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTDHL Autonomous Robot at work.Source: DHLWorkers at DHL Group used to walk close to a half marathon each day just to classify, pick and move items across massive warehouses.Now, their distance and efforts are greatly reduced by autonomous mobile robots that can unload containers for the package delivery and supply chain management company with a speed of up to 650 cases per hour.”That is what we look forward to, and where we’ve been successful in deploying technology at scale over the last five years, going from when we started in 2020 with 240 projects, and now we’re up to 10,000 projects,” Tim Tetzlaff, DHL’s global head of digital transformation, told CNBC. The company’s autonomous innovations have accelerated processes at 95% of DHL’s global warehouses. Item-picking robots in one warehouse have increased units picked per hour by 30%, while autonomous forklifts at that same warehouse have contributed a 20% increase in efficiency, the company said.Tetzlaff said automation is important for the company because it’s such a labor-intensive business.”We still have the ambition to grow our business even further, but if you look at where these distribution centers should be located … it’s typically very tough to find additional labor or even additional spaces just to build these warehouses there,” he said. DHL is one of multiple fulfillment companies moving toward automation and leveraging artificial intelligence as the industry works toward greater efficiency. On an earnings call with analysts in late January, United Parcel Service CEO Carol Tomé said the company deployed automation in 57 buildings in the fourth quarter, bringing its total to 127 automated buildings, with plans for 24 more in 2026.”This year, we plan to further automate our network and as a result, we expect to increase the percentage of U.S. volume we process through automated facilities to 68% by the end of the year, up from 66.5% at the end of 2025,” she said.Similarly, FedEx has said it sees automation as an opportunity to enhance its workers’ jobs, installing robotic arms to help process small packages at its Memphis hub and working with AI company Dexterity to leverage robots for loading boxes into containers. Its “Network 2.0″ initiative is working to increase the efficiency of its package processes.The company recently announced a partnership with Berkshire Grey to launch a fully autonomous robot to unload containers and optimize operations.It estimates that the global warehouse automation market is expected to exceed $51 billion by 2030.”We now have about 24% of our eligible average daily volume flowing through 355 Network 2.0-optimized facilities,” CEO Raj Subramaniam said on a call with analysts in December.A human fleetA worker unloads packages from a FedEx truck in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesWith the rise of automation, companies are weighing the balance between their human workers and their technological innovations.UPS has announced layoffs north of 75,000 over the past year as the company focuses on efficiency and cuts down its partnership with Amazon amid a multiyear turnaround plan.The company also said it closed 93 buildings in 2025 and plans to shutter at least 24 buildings in the first half of 2026.”What’s happening is you’re seeing a cascading effect of sites being closed that are legacy conventional facilities, a lot of labor required to run those facilities, to a much more nimble, quicker, automated, consolidated facility,” Executive Vice President Nando Cesarone said on the January call.In a statement to CNBC, a UPS spokesperson said the company is focused on making jobs easier for its employees and that the AI and robotics take on repetitive tasks that “make us more efficient in other functions.”FedEx did not respond to requests for comment on how the company is balancing its workforce and technology. Subramaniam said on the most recent earnings call that the Network 2.0 initiative has resulted in “structural cost reductions” but the company has not publicly disclosed job cut amounts.Teamsters, the union representing workers from many of the major packaging companies, said it will remain focused on ens …
