While automated storage and retrieval systems, or ASRS, are well-established, new technologies promise to increase throughput. Brightpick today unveiled Gridpicker, a fulfillment system that uses a grid framework, artificial intelligence, and mobile manipulators built on its Autopicker technology.
“We created Autopicker to help operators achieve major cost and labor savings while keeping operations flexible,” stated Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Brightpick. “As deployments scaled, we saw that a large segment of the market, mostly high-volume fulfillment centers, needed far more throughput and performance than AMR systems could deliver.”
“So we created Gridpicker by essentially taking our Autopicker robots and placing them on a high-density grid,” he added. “It delivers shuttle-level performance with AMR-level simplicity at 40% lower cost compared to shuttles, delivering the most flexible, scalable, highest-throughput ASRS for demanding warehouse environments.”
Spun off from machine vision provider Photoneo in 2021, Brightpick said its AI robots enable warehouses of any size to automate order picking, buffering, consolidation, dispatch, and stock replenishment. The Austin, Texas-based company said Autopicker, which won a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, takes just weeks to deploy and allows warehouse operators to keep labor to a minimum.
Brightpick has more than 250 employees and hundreds of robots deployed with customers across the U.S. and Europe.
Gridpicker offers both density and speed
Seventy-five percent of today’s automated storage and picking market is handled by legacy shuttle systems, despite many new technology entrants, according to Brightpick. At the same time, shuttle systems require time-consuming installation, high capital costs, and considerable infrastructure.
In response to this market gap, Brightpick said Gridpicker combines the simplicity of high-density grid design, the cost advantages of its proven Autopicker platform, and AI-powered mobile manipulators. The company claimed that its system can deliver up to twice the throughput per unit area compared with shuttle systems, while maximizing labor savings and storage density.
Brightpick asserted that Gridpicker reduces the need to build costly new facilities by delivering:
- Maximum throughput: It offers higher throughput per square meter than any ASRS, including shuttles – up to 10 order lines per hour per square meter.
- Maximum storage density: Gridpicker achieves the space utilization rivaling that of cube systems – up to 12 m (40 ft.) in height.
- Maximum labor savings: The system could automate the entire fulfillment process with mobile robotic picking, buffering, sortation, and consolidation to enable up to 95% labor savings.
“Gridpicker is the only system whose cost decreases as the share of robotically pickable items increases,” said Brightpick. “As more SKUs become suitable for robotic picking, each mobile manipulator becomes more productive, and fewer robots are required to achieve the same throughput.”
In contrast, traditional systems must add robotic picking cells to increase automation levels, which increases cost and complexity, the company said.
Brightpick said it designed Gridpicker from the ground up for robotic picking. It noted that its completion of more than 1 billion picks in live production gives it a data and AI advantage for increasing robotic pickability rates over time.
Multiple e-commerce customers have already ordered Gridpicker, with first installations scheduled for later this year.
Brightpick builds on its picking and digital experience
Gridpicker uses the same AI model for robotic manipulation, fulfillment logic, and software stack as Autopicker, which is already operating at scale across hundreds of customers such as NAPA Auto Parts, said Brightpick.
The new system travels above shelves on a fixed aluminum grid structure and picks directly from storage totes sitting at the top. Carrying two order totes at once to further increase productivity, each robot can deliver more than 100 picks per hour, offering higher efficiency than traditional goods-to-person (G2P) systems.
“We’ve developed our own custom shelving for this solution together with NEDCON as our first launch partner,” Zizka told Automated Warehouse. “While the Gridpicker solution does require more customized shelving, it still remains highly affordable, modular, easy to install, and suitable for various warehouse environments including those with uneven flooring.”
Gridpicker also comes equipped with Brightpick Fetcher robots. The lightweight robotic trays travel on fixed rails attached to the shelving, bringing totes from storage to the top shelf for access.
At its core is the Brightpick Intuition orchestration software, which the company said acts as the digital brain of the warehouse. By maintaining a real-time digital twin of the operation, Intuition coordinates fleets of robots and optimizes task allocation and movement. It also enables robots to perceive, plan, and execute tasks with human-like adaptability, said the company.
Intuition integrates with customer warehouse management systems (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software via standard application programming interfaces (APIs).
Gridpicker suitable for omnichannel, B2B operations
Brightpick said that Gridpicker consolidates warehouse automation, eliminating the need to integrate disparate systems. The system also uses a SCARA robot arm for picking, and the company plans to add degrees of freedom and end-effector changers. Gridpicker can handle the full range of SKU velocities, from the fastest movers to less frequently picked items.
The system can pick from split totes with up to eight smaller compartments, but each one needs to carry an individual SKU, Zizka explained. Brightpick plans to integrate vision-language-action (VLA) models to enable recognition of specific SKUs in mixed bins for returns handling.
“It’s important to note that for traditional fulfillment, it’s very rare for customers to store products in mixed bins because that would significantly and unnecessarily complicate inventory tracking,” Zizka said.
The ability to handle individual items and full cases, including robotically pickable and non-pickable products, also makes Gridpicker suitable for omnichannel and business-to-business (B2B) operations, said Brightpick. Built-in order buffering and sortation further streamline outbound flows for lights-out overnight shifts, it said.
Brightpick will show Gridpicker and announce its European launch partners at LogiMAT 2026 in Stuttgart, Germany, on March 24, at 13:00 CET in Hall 8, Stand 8B25. The company will also have an official unveiling at MODEX in Atlanta on April 13 at 1 p.m. ET at Hall C, Booth C13383.