Thursday marked significant progress for companies developing automated truck loading and unloading technology, with FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) announcing an expanded deployment of a specialized trailer-loading robot and Pickle Robot Company unveiling a partnership with Ambi Robotics for end-to-end warehouse automation.

FedEx said it is scaling up use of a Dexterity Inc. robot at its Hagerstown, Maryland, hub after several years of validating the startup's technology. The expanded use case will allow FedEx to continue evaluating Dexterity's AI-enabled trailer-loading system at a larger operational scale in a high-volume logistics environment.

Separately, Pickle Robot Company said it will pair its trailer-unloading robot with Ambi Robotics's system to automate the movement of packages from trailers through pallet stacking and warehouse receiving operations.

FedEx is pursuing technology assistance to improve worker safety and network efficiency. Loading and unloading trailers ranks among the most physically demanding and challenging tasks for warehouse workers in the company's package operations, requiring real-time problem solving. Automating that workflow has proven difficult due to the variability of package sizes, weights, and loading conditions, as well as the need to implement solutions across thousands of trailers in the FedEx system. Warehousing has historically experienced among the highest injury rates of any major U.S. industry sector, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and automated trailer loading and unloading has long been viewed as a particularly persistent bottleneck because it cannot rely on the structured, repeatable conditions that earlier generations of warehouse automation required.

The emergence of physical AI — which enables autonomous systems like robots to perceive, understand, reason, and perform or orchestrate complex functions in the real world through motors, robotic arms, or wheels — has brought the technology closer to commercial viability. Major logistics and e-commerce companies including Amazon, which has deployed hundreds of thousands of mobile drive units across its fulfillment network, have invested heavily in warehouse robotics, but the dock-door environment of trailers — with uneven floors, unpredictable lighting, and irregularly stacked freight — has remained one of the hardest automation frontiers.

"Truck unloading and truck loading are a very difficult problem for robotics to solve — packages come in every size, shape and weight," FedEx CEO Raj Subrmaniam said in a January interview with the New York Times. "We're not looking for humanoid robots. We're looking for super humanoid robots because maybe they need to have a couple of elbows. More degrees of freedom. It's not ready for prime time yet."

The ongoing tests with Dexterity allow FedEx to better analyze how AI-assisted robots perform in trailer-loading operations and how the technology can be integrated into broader hub operations, including destination planning, trailer assignment, maintenance, and workforce processes, FedEx said in a news release.

Future deployment decisions will be informed by safety, operational performance, reliability, business needs, and lessons learned from evaluating the technology at a larger operational scale, said spokeswoman Christina Meek. The Dexterity loader is also being used at a facility in Tracy, California, she added.

Dexterity's trailer loader is controlled by Foresight, an AI model that makes real-time decisions in dynamic environments. By combining vision, depth, and touch, Foresight predicts how physical AI actions impact the world. In autonomous trailer loading, it reasons across three spatial dimensions and time to optimize how packages are placed for space, stability, and speed across a wide range of operating conditions. Foresight powers Dexterity's dual-armed "human-like" robot, Mech, which is designed for heavy industrial operations while remaining compact enough to operate inside trailers.

In February, FedEx announced a pilot implementation of the Scoop autonomous robotic package unloader from Berkshire Grey Inc., a SoftBank subsidiary pursuing AI-powered robotic solutions for supply chain processes, following a multiyear collaboration. The Scoop was engineered specifically for bulk automated trailer unloading, delivering a continuous flow and handling all package types. FedEx said at the time that the first Scoop will be operating in a live environment this year.

In 2021, FedEx deployed Berkshire Grey's Robotic Product Sortation and Identification (RPSi) systems to robotically sort small packages that arrive daily and require distribution. In 2022, the companies expanded their relationship, announcing an agreement for developing broader AI robotic capabilities to improve the safety and efficiency of FedEx package handling operations globally.

Pickle Robot and Ambi Robotics Partnership

Berkeley, California-based Ambi Robotics and Pickle Robot, based in Charleston, Massachusetts, said they had successfully integrated their robotic systems to provide an end-to-end, trailer-to-warehouse automated solution in response to demand from Fortune 500 retail and logistics companies.

The deployment combines Pickle Robot's trailer-unloading robots with Ambi Robotics' AmbiStack multi-purpose stacking solution, enabling a continuous and autonomous flow of packages from inbound trailers through receiving operations, the companies said in a news release. Cases are unloaded from trailers by Pickle Robot's systems, then inducted via conveyor into AmbiStack for identification, scanning, and stacking for downstream warehouse operations.

The technology leverages existing warehouse infrastructure and systems, enabling customers to fully automate critical inbound processes without major facility redesigns. The collaboration demonstrates how warehouse operators can deploy specialized automation technologies from multiple providers to address labor-intensive workflows, such as dock-door transfers, while maintaining operational flexibility, according to the announcement.

"As Physical AI transforms supply chains, interoperability will become increasingly important. We believe the future of warehouse automation will be built on collaboration across the industry, where specialized systems work together to solve complex operational challenges," said Ambi Robotics CEO Jim Liefer.

"Customers want automation that improves real-world throughput while fitting into existing operations," said AJ Meyer, founder and CEO of Pickle Robot Co. "This collaboration shows how robotic unloading can integrate seamlessly with downstream automation systems to help move goods more efficiently through the warehouse, and it sets the stage for orchestrating multi-robot processes that can self-improve and self-correct over time."