Every online ‘buy’ a few minutes later triggers a silver floor robot to glide the shelf under it, lift it and haul it to a worker.
Geek+, a Chinese tech firm, builds and tests these autonomous mobile robots in Hefei, China before shipping them to UK warehouses. The robots rely on simple QR‑code markers and safety fencing, allowing rapid deployment without costly infrastructure.
Major retailers – Tesco, Asda and Next – employ Geek+ robots across 10 sites, claiming faster picking, more efficient space use and fewer errors. The UK’s labor shortage and sluggish productivity growth make this tech a welcome boost, but the government and unions emphasise keeping humans involved through retraining so automation lifts productivity, not job numbers.
Geek+ is already eyeing end‑to‑end un‑manned warehouses: automated picking, handling and packing. Meanwhile humanoid robots, which could work in any environment, promise a complementary role – though current tech still struggles with repetitive tasks requiring dexterity. China’s rapid rise in robotics, backed by its EV ecosystem, suggests a flood of sophisticated robots soon to populate other global warehouses.
