A video posted in August 2026 is authentic footage of an Amazon delivery robot driving off a pier and into the ocean.
In August 2026, people on social media shared a video apparently showing an Amazon delivery robot driving off a pier and into the ocean. For example, one Instagram post (archived) with the video said an “isolated navigation error” led to the robot driving off a pier in San Diego.
Users also shared the video on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived).
However, there was evidence that the video was generated with artificial intelligence tools, including a label denoting as much on the original post. Therefore, we’ve rated this video fake.
We first searched the video by capturing a frame in Google Lens to perform a reverse image search. Because we could not find an older version of the video through the search, it’s likely that the Instagram post above was the original version.
Snopes messaged the Instagram user, named Evan Era, seeking confirmation that he created the video and, if so, what AI tools he used. We’ll update this story if we receive an answer.
Era is a magician who frequently posts (archived) AI-generated content to his Instagram page. He attaches Instagram’s AI label to some of these videos, including on the video of the Amazon delivery robot driving off the pier. Instagram’s AI label denotes that “AI may have been used for a wide range of purposes, from photo retouching to generating entirely new content.”
Other evidence that the video was AI-generated is that the delivery robot did not match the appearance or history of the real Amazon robot, called Scout. Scout moved around on six wheels, not four like the robot in the video. And while Scout did have the Prime logo on its sides, it did not feature the Prime logo on its back, as is visivle on the back of the video’s robot.
Amazon only ever announced that Scout was being tested in four areas: Everett, Washington; Irvine, California; Franklin, Tennessee; and Atlanta. Irvine is a suburb of Los Angeles, not San Diego.
In 2023, a former Amazon employee who said he worked on the Scout team wrote on LinkedIn (archived) that Amazon had canceled Scout. Amazon hasn’t released any blog posts about Scout since June 2022. The video therefore wouldn’t have been recent even if it were real.
Snopes reached out to Amazon by email to confirm whether it had any record of such a Scout incident, whether Scout had been canceled and when it was canceled. An Amazon spokesperson responded, saying that Scout was halted in 2022, had six wheels and was never deployed in San Diego. According to the spokesperson, Amazon believes the video is not authentic.
For further reading, Snopes has previously debunked similar pieces of media. For example, in June 2026, we found a story and image about a beluga whale escaping captivity in Alaska was generated by artificial intelligence tools.
