Over the next few years, Amazon methodically redesigned the Kiva robots and moved Kiva’s software to AWS. Then it introduced the machines into its newer FCs, with profound results. As Clark had hoped, they magnified worker productivity and decreased the rate of growth of Amazon’s seasonal labor needs relative to its sales. They also allowed Amazon to build denser fulfillment centers, with the shelf-toting robots swarming over the ground floor as well as a series of reinforced mezzanines. In a 2014 TV interview, Clark estimated that Amazon was able to get 50 percent more products per square
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