AI-powered warehouse drones are changing the way ecommerce works

With more orders and a depleted workforce, warehouses are feeling the squeeze, but a Pittsburgh startup is betting that AI-powered drones can ease the strain.

Gather AI equips off-the-shelf drones with its proprietary software, allowing the drones to fly autonomously through warehouses without GPS, Wi-Fi or infrastructure changes. For businesses, it can make the process of fulfilling ecommerce orders more efficient, according to Sankalp Arora, cofounder and CEO.

The company’s growing success is further positioning Pittsburgh as a growing hub for physical AI.

“In the past, warehouses were sharing or sending inventory to Walmart, let’s say, 5,000 pairs of jeans to a store,” Arora told Technical.ly, “but now they have to send one pair of jeans to you, and if that pair of jeans doesn’t arrive on time, there’s a 40% chance they never get that order again because they lose the customer.” 

The warehouse workforce has been declining for the last three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the industry has a high turnover rate. 

Using computer vision and machine learning, Gather AI’s drones capture and analyze images of warehouse inventory. They can read and interpret things like barcodes, text and expiration dates, which automates a traditionally manual and time-consuming process. 

At the core of Gather AI’s work is a mission to use artificial intelligence applied to the physical world for good. 

“I think more and more dangerous and monotonous jobs that require physical labor, that are operations critical but put people in harm’s way, will be automated,” Arora said. “That’s what really excites me about physical AI, that you can really help people who need it the most.” 

Gather AI is just one of the AI-powered startups garnering serious attention in the city and raising Pittsburgh’s national profile. Arora pointed to recent major funding rounds from companies like Abridge, Gecko Robotics and Skild AI as signs that Pittsburgh’s AI ecosystem is heating up. 

“The buzz is greater than ever,” Arora said. “As a result of the capital flowing in now, talent also has mobility within the city, which means hiring talent becomes easier.” 

A mission to overcome physical hurdles for workers 

Late last year, Gather AI worked with Bosma Enterprises to make its drone technology accessible to more than half of the company’s staff who are blind or visually impaired. 

The startup integrated voiceover and screen magnification features into its technology so that those workers could access crucial information from Gather AI’s drone in a more accessible way. 

“Technology can fill the gap when someone loses their vision,” said Bosma President and CEO Jeffrey Mittman in a prepared statement. “The drones are a perfect example of technology making the overall process effective for everyone and accessible to someone who is blind.”

Gather AI has also adapted its tech for physically challenging environments. 

At Langham Logistics, the company stores sensitive pharmaceutical products in a freezing warehouse. Traditionally, staff had to physically count inventory in minus 4°F, so workers could only count inventory for up to 15 minutes at a time. Now, drones handle the scanning, sending real-time data to workers outside the freezer.

Gather AI’s mission-driven approach is gaining international recognition. 

The company was recently named one of CB Insights’ most promising AI startups of 2025, and later this week, some of its team members will travel to Geneva to participate in the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit, an event that showcases AI products with positive social impact.

“We are fortunate enough to be one of the few companies who has physical and digital AI agents who are actually operating out there in the world,” Arora said, “and making a real impact.”

Jumpstarted by federal defense funding

Gather AI’s journey started far from warehouse floors.

Nearly a decade ago, cofounders Arora, Daniel Maturana and Geetesh Dubey were doctoral students at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where they worked on a team that developed the first full-scale autonomous helicopter guaranteed to fly safely on its own. 

The helicopter could dodge obstacles, land by itself, fly 10 kilometers in under three minutes and create 3D maps of its surroundings. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, their work was tested at the FBI’s training grounds in Quantico, Virginia. The project earned the Howard Hughes Award and a nomination for the prestigious Collier Trophy for advancing aeronautics.

Through that research, the team realized drones are powerful tools for collecting data, Arora said. And as the team wrapped up its doctoral research, it joined CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship to figure out how its technology could be applied outside the lab. That’s where the idea for Gather AI began to take shape.

Through customer discovery interviews, the team noticed supply chain issues were a common theme, and a major question emerged: What’s actually sitting in the warehouse? 

With ecommerce booming, there was pressure on warehouses to deliver more orders, and that pressure was falling on workers as well. 

“It’s a hard job that people usually don’t like to do, which we can make easier,” Arora said. “[It] resonated very much with me on trying to have a positive impact on the world.” 

CMU keeps Gather AI grounded in Pittsburgh

Arora attributes a lot of Gather AI’s early success to the connections he and his team made at CMU. 

The startup’s first pilot customers came through connections at the university, and its initial fundraising round in 2019 included investors the cofounders met through CMU’s network. 

It’s also where Arora first learned what it meant to build a company.

“This is my first job,” Arora said, “so I didn’t really know there’s a steep learning curve on what taking the technology that we’ve built in academia and having an impact looks like and this journey of learning that started at CMU.” 

Today, Gather AI is headquartered on Pittsburgh’s North Side, just across the river from the Strip District. The startup’s decision to stay in the city has been both personal and strategic, according to Arora. 

“All of our wives were working in Pittsburgh [during the founding of Gather AI], so that was a good motivation to stay here,” Arora said. “But at the same time, the talent pool coming from Carnegie Mellon, which we knew was familiar and can be tapped to do the kind of things we do.” 

Gather AI now has about 50 employees, split evenly between Pittsburgh and remote locations. Still, there’s room for Pittsburgh to grow bolder, according to Arora. 

“The work that happens here is so real, it’s so technically sound and it can have far-reaching impact,” Arora said. “I think we need to be a bit more bold in communicating vision, and bolder even in execution, in the amount of risk we take or the people we align with to take those risks with us.”

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