Today, users can have Alexa make purchases on Amazon.com, read out the latest weather report and perform a variety of other actions online. Soon, the virtual assistant may gain the ability to do chores around the house, too.

Bloomberg reported this morning that Amazon.com Inc. is secretly developing a domestic robot set to hit the market as early as next year. Details about the system are scarce, but one of the sources who spoke to the publication speculated that it could be a sort of “mobile Alexa.”

The tipsters said Amazon has codenamed the development initiative Project Vespa after the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family. It’s reportedly overseen by Gregg Zehr, the executive who heads the company’s 3,000-person Lab126 hardware development division in Sunnyvale, California. The group is credited with creating bestselling devices such as the Kindle e-reader and the Echo line of Alexa-powered smart speakers.

Work on the robot has been going on for quite some time, according to Bloomberg’s sources, but Amazon kicked the effort into high gear last year with a hiring spree. This claim seems to be supported by the job listings on Lab126’s website. The division is currently advertising dozens of opening with titles such as “Software Engineer, Robotics” and “Principle Sensors Engineer.”

Amazon has reportedly recruited several “specialized” mechanics experts as part of the push to help with the design effort. It also appointed Max Paley, a former Apple Inc. vice president of engineering, to lead the development of computer vision software for the robot.

The tipsters said that current prototype models are equipped with multiple cameras they can use to see their surroundings and navigate between the rooms of a home. But there’s no word on exactly what chores the robot will perform. It might be designed to help with cleaning, like iRobot Corp.’s Roomba, the most popular domestic robot currently on the market, or perhaps a different task entirely.

Bloomberg’s sources said Amazon expects to start testing the system with employees by the end of the year. They added that the robot could become available to consumers as soon as 2019, though it’s not even certain yet that the product will be released at all.

If the details in the leak are accurate, Project Vespa represents quite the step-change from the e-readers and other comparatively conventional gadgets that Amazon’s Lab126 group has built so far. But that is not to say the company is a stranger to robotics. The retail giant has an entire division focused on developing warehouse robots to help automate its vast supply chain.

Image: Amazon