On June 21, at the 2026 APEC CEO Summit China Forum, Richard Liu, founder and chairman of JD.com, revealed that JD.com has proposed the “Nirvana Plan” to send its 700,000 blue-collar workers, including delivery drivers, to school for skills training. This is in response to the risk of job displacement caused by the impact of AI and robotics technology. Liu stated, “In the future, robots will deliver goods, and there will be no need for delivery drivers,” but emphasized that he does not want to see 70,000 employees lose their jobs. JD.com has already signed contracts with 120 schools nationwide, with training focused on robot maintenance and repair — “turning blue-collar workers into white-collar workers, letting them work in offices without having to brave the elements.” He also noted that the principle for companies adopting new technology should be to make human life better and work more interesting, “not for technology to deprive people of their basic rights.”
This statement is highly consistent with JD.com’s accelerated push for unmanned delivery in recent years. JD Logistics’ unmanned delivery robots and drones have been operating regularly in multiple cities, with the automation of last-mile delivery continuing to speed up. The “Nirvana Plan” is one of the largest internal reemployment training programs among domestic tech companies. Observers see it as a proactive move by JD.com to balance automation transformation with labor relations management, as well as a public response to societal concerns about “AI replacing jobs.”