JD.com Founder Says Robots Will Replace 700,000 Couriers Robots are coming for JD.com’s delivery network — and the company’s founder is openly warning that hundreds of thousands of human couriers will eventually be replaced.

Early warnings about automation

China’s rapid push into advanced logistics technology has long raised alarms that millions of gig workers face displacement. Against this backdrop, JD.com founder Richard Liu used the APEC China CEO Forum in Shenzhen to say plainly that robots would take over the company’s delivery operations.

Liu told attendees that JD.com’s robots will “sooner or later” replace its 700,000 delivery workers, an unusually direct admission in an industry where executives often avoid acknowledging that machines will take people’s jobs.

Liu’s promise and the Nirvana plan

Even as he forecast the end of courier roles, Liu insisted he did not want “our 700,000 brothers to go without meals, without jobs,” according to reporting based on his remarks. Weeks earlier, in an internal speech, he reportedly pledged JD.com would not fire a single front-line worker replaced by machines, creating a tension between the scale of projected job losses and his commitment to existing staff.

To bridge that gap, JD.com has launched an internal programme called Nirvana to move couriers into new work before robots become widespread in deliveries. The company has signed contracts with about 120 schools across China to retrain staff in skills such as repairing and maintaining delivery robots, and in emerging roles like AI trainers and robot maintenance engineers.

Open questions for workers and policymakers

The strategy pits retraining against the pace of automation. Analysts note that roles servicing delivery robots are unlikely to match today’s courier headcount, and JD.com’s labour data in the coming years will test whether its promise to protect workers holds. Chinese policymakers, already worried that rapid automation threatens the stability of the gig economy, will be watching closely.

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