Since taking the reins as chief executive of Kindred at the beginning of the year, Jim Liefer has been focused on commercializing his company’s autonomous robots. But unlike forward-projecting use cases for robots that may (or may not) one day take over for human beings in a wide swath of functions, Kindred’s current robots are purpose-built for the floor of retail fulfillment centers. That puts Kindred in the middle of an interesting business question: Given rising consumer expectations associated with online ordering, can anyone match or beat Amazon when it comes to speed, accuracy and efficiency?

Some day, there might be another mobile robot that serves our robot, that brings the product to us.

It takes us anywhere from five to eight hours to set up a robot. So it’s definitely plug and play.

The Kindred.AI sorting robot in the lab.

Am I going to hire a human to do the job, or I can hire a robot to do that job?

It’s relatively low-pain for us to roll them out and roll them to another customer facility that’s probably nearby.

We can pick up an iPhone and even general merchandise-related items like baby wipes or rubber balls.