New AI Runs Warehouse Robots and Workers Together — Your Packages Move Faster
It could mean faster deliveries and fewer people doing back-breaking truck unloading.
Most robotics startups try to build a better robot — fancier hands, smarter cameras, a human-like body. Destro, which came out of hiding Tuesday with $8 million in seed money, skipped that entirely. Its bet is that the hard part isn't the machine, it's the coordination. So it built software that acts like an air-traffic controller for a warehouse, giving instructions to robots and human workers at the same time. "One of the biggest reasons we are winning against robotics companies is because we are not a robotics company," founder Manthan Pawar told TechCrunch.
The test case came from Yusen Logistics, a South Korean shipping giant. Richard Brunelle, who runs automation across about 30 U.S. facilities, had a problem called cross-docking: unloading goods from one truck and sorting them into mixed loads for other trucks headed to customers. He asked Destro to adapt its software to that job, and the company rebuilt around it. Two other big-name robot startups had already tried and failed — one could only move carts point to point, and the other still needed a person to manage the whole operation.
In the pilot, at one Pacific Northwest facility, three robots from Miva Robotics move the loaded carts while Destro's software directs the humans, the carts and the trucks. "We make that operation less labor intensive, and we get away from the paper," Brunelle said. The results were good enough that Yusen is now expanding to 26 robots there and starting a second pilot with 17 robots in Southern California. Pawar says he plans to copy and paste this workflow into thousands of similar warehouses.
The catch: this works for hauling carts, not for delicate tasks that need real dexterity. Open robot bodies and shared AI models still struggle with fine manipulation, and the big AI labs might decide to keep that business for themselves. Destro's answer is focus. Pawar says the company expects to be making more money than it spends by the end of this year.
- Destro doesn't build robots — it sells the software brain that directs robots and human workers together, like a traffic controller for a warehouse.
- Yusen Logistics is expanding from a 3-robot test to 26 robots, plus a new 17-robot pilot in Southern California.
- The gains: less heavy lifting for people, less paper, faster sorting — but robots still can't handle delicate, dexterous tasks.
Why It Matters
Faster, cheaper deliveries — and warehouse jobs that shift from heavy lifting to supervising smart machines.