The rise of robots is no longer mere science fiction, with robotics and artificial intelligence infiltrating nearly every area of our lives. From self-serve checkouts in supermarkets to screening legal documents, robots are now working more efficiently and economically than we do in some workplaces. So it's no surprise that a McKinsey report from 2017 predicts that robots will take over 800 million jobs by 2030, which would affect one-fifth of the global workforce. But what do robots in the workplace actually look like? 

Continued labour shortages led Japanese construction company Shimizu to invest in robots. Since 2015 the company has placed 20 billion yen ($180.7m/£140.3m) into the development of construction robots such as Robo-Welder (pictured) and Robo-Buddy, which inserts hanger bolts and installs ceiling boards. In fact, the global market for construction robots is set to double to $420 million (£326m) by 2025, up from $200m (£155m) in 2017, according to QY Research.

DHL started to use collaborative robots in 2016. The logistics leviathan trialled two Rethink Robotics cobots called Baxter and Sawyer at its warehouses in the US. The smart cobots perform packing, kitting and pre-retail tasks alongside their human colleagues. And the robots are here to stay – in November 2018, DHL announced a $300 million (£233m) investment in robots in its warehouses.

Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) is one of China's leading suppliers of telecoms equipment. Big on automation, the Shanghai-based firm has replaced most of its workforce with robots, so the company now only has 700 workers. CIG plans to have a 90% automated workforce soon, eventually creating energy-efficient 'dark factories' where robots toil away in pitch-black darkness.

The ride-sharing app is testing self-driving cars on the roads of San Francisco and Pittsburgh, despite running into regulatory difficulties with the US Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and controversy after a pedestrian died in Tempe, Arizona in March 2018. The ultimate goal? Uber is aiming to replace all human drivers with robots.

Tesla's new $5 billion (£3.9bn) Gigafactory 1 in the Nevada desert, which is still under construction, will be almost 100% automated in the future. The factory, set to be the size of 101 American football fields, will see machines will doing the vast majority of the work. That said, the factory should also provide 10,000 jobs for humans to oversee the robot workforce.

Kitchen robots are starting to pack a punch with Miso Robotics launching the world’s first autonomous kitchen assistant – Flippy. A robot burger flipper, it has a jointed, bionic arm with a spatula at the end, and is armed with thermal vision so that it can see whether a burger is thoroughly cooked. It can even clean up after itself. The robot’s amazing capacity to flip burgers means that it has been working full-time alongside its colleagues in CaliBurger in Pasadena since June 2018.

We may soon be saying goodbye to human bartenders as the world’s first bionic version, Makr Shakr, has been installed on cruise liners and in bars on the Las Vegas strip. First created in 2013, the latest version of the robot has two bionic arms which can shake cocktails and squeeze lemons more accurately than any resident Tom Cruise-style mixologist. It can also make up to 120 drinks an hour. That's some Happy Hour.

Retail robots are hitting our stores in droves. In late 2015, Best Buy tested a product-retrieving robot named Chloe at its store in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood. The robot retrieves small items like CDs and headphones in seconds after customers order via a touchscreen.

Luxury cosmetics company Shisheido is another Japanese company using robots to combat the impact of a shrinking Japanese workforce. The firm tested a team of humanoid robots on its production line in March 2017, with robots working alongside humans as pictured.

The e-commerce giant snapped up Kiva Robotics in 2012 for a staggering $755 million (£587m). Amazon now has 100,000 fulfillment robots working in its warehouses worldwide. But humans are still very much employed too. Amazon still employs 500,000 humans as of June 2018 as the robots don't have the "common sense" to be trusted with all tasks. That's not the only way that Amazon uses tech to replace humans...

There are now 10 Amazon Go staff-free, checkout-free stores across the US. The stores are a step beyond self-serve tills, and could spell the end of queuing at the supermarket, and the need for cashiers or supervisors. Amazon Go’s ‘Just Walk Out’ shopping experience is powered by an app which allows customers to enter the store once it is downloaded. The app then tracks the products you pick up around the store and charges your account later, so that you can walk out with your purchases as easily as you walked in.

In early 2016, Target carried out a trial of stock-checking robots at one of its stores in downtown San Francisco. The Tally droids, which quietly move around the store scanning products and labels, are built by a company called Simbe Robotics. At the time Target said that it was considering a concept store entirely run by robots, but so far this hasn't become a reality – just yet, anyway.

Human customer service staff may soon have to start thinking about a career change. In 2016 Hardware store Lowe's rolled out a team of Fellow Navii 'Lowebots' at 11 stores in the San Francisco Bay area. The multilingual bots help customers locate products and can keep tabs on inventory levels.

Macy's has also got in on the act with its artificial intelligence-powered virtual bot. The leading department store launched Macy's On Call, a mobile digital shopping assistant that can deal with customers' queries and help them navigate the stores.

The German sportswear firm revealed the robot-made Futurecraft M.F.G. shoe in September 2016 and opened its first automated factory in 2017 in Germany. Adidas' Speedfactory has streamlined the sneaker manufacturing process and the firm has since opened another of these futuristic factories in Atlanta, USA in April 2018.

Walmart started testing warehouse drones, which fly around its distribution centres monitoring inventory levels and flagging up low stock or missing items, in 2016. Super-efficient, the flying bots can do a full stock check in under a day, a task that would normally take human staff an entire month.

The air conditioning firm hit the headlines in 2017 when the then-presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed he'd brokered a deal to keep Carrier jobs in the US. While 1,000 American jobs were saved, Carrier still laid off 632 workers for cheaper labourers in Mexico. Not only that but a significant proportion of those roles will be taken over by robots as the company embraces automation.

Nestle uses SoftBank's Pepper robots to sell Dolce Gusto coffee pods and machines in department stores in Japan, as well as answer customer queries. More than just a gimmick, the robots have been rolled out to 1,000 stores in the country.

MasterCard has teamed up with Pizza Hut to roll out cashier and customer service robots at the firm's restaurants in China. Like Nestle, the initiative uses SoftBank's humanoid Pepper robots, which can take orders, process payments and answer diners' questions.

On top of that, Pizza Hut opened a concept store in Shanghai called ph+ that boasts two robot waiters. The friendly droids welcome diners, show them to their seats, take orders and deliver drinks. Robot manufacturer SoftBank is also reportedly pumping money into pizza chain Zume to develop robot pizza makers.

Japan has a very particular care crisis. A low birth rate and historically high life expectancy have led to a large number of over-65s, and a lack of younger people to look after them. Robots are set to become a fixture in global social care, and in 2017 a $2.95 million (£2.3m) international three-year research project funded by the EU and the Japanese Government was launched, using the Pepper robot as a starting point.

Foxconn, the Chinese company that makes Apple, Samsung and Microsoft devices, replaced 60,000 human workers with robots in 2016. Eventually, the company hopes to automate all roles that involve monotonous repetitive tasks.

In December 2016, online delivery service Just Eat started using robots to deliver food in North Greenwich, London. The self-driving robots, engineered by Anglo-Estonian company Starship Technologies, are fitted with GPS and cameras to navigate the capital's thoroughfares. In August 2017 the firm had delivered as many as 1,000 meals by robot.

The hotel industry hasn't been immune to the robot revolution either. Mario the robot helps human hotel staff check in guests at the Ghent Marriott Hotel in Belgium. Across the pond, Wally the room service droid delivers food and drink to guests at the Marriott Residence Inn LAX in Los Angeles.

Marriott isn't the only hotel group using robot staff. The Crowne Plaza San Jose-Silicon Valley Hotel in California has its very own room service robot called Dash. The touchscreen-faced droid delivers small items such as sandwiches and cosmetics to the hotel's guests.

Meanwhile, the Yotel chain has a pair of service robots at its Singapore hotel called Yoshi and Yolanda (pictured), the Yobot robotic luggage storage robot in New York, and a guest services droid at its Boston hotel called, wait for it, YO2D2. You'll also find multiple robots working at high-end hotels such as Chicago's EMC2 and the Renaissance Las Vegas.

The automotive industry is the largest user of industrial robots. Ford has pioneered the use of automatons in the car-making process. The company is using 'cobots', smaller robots that work alongside human workers and can even perform delicate tasks such as making coffee for their flesh and blood colleagues. In Ford's factory in Germany, robots help to fit shock absorbers into wheel arches.

One of the world's most efficient car plants, Nissan's factory in Sunderland, England churns out half a million vehicles a year and can build a Qashqai in just 8.5 hours. The secret of its success? A massive 95% of the plant is automated, with robots carrying out the bulk of the work.

British outsourcing firm Capita has announced plans to replace 2,000 staff with automatons. The FTSE 100 firm, which counts the UK's National Health Service and Driving Standards Agency among its client base, is investing in a variety of ultra-efficient robot and cobot technologies as part of a major cost-cutting exercise.

Taking automation to the extreme, China's Everwin Precision Technology has replaced 90% of its factory workforce with robots. The company, which produces electronic components, is in the vanguard of the robot revolution in China.

Zara's parent company Inditex operates 14 automated factories in Spain staffed by scores of robots that do everything from cutting patterns to dying fabric. The machines work so fast, Zara can get a product from the design stage to the sales floor in as little as 10 days.

Ocado, a UK-based online grocery shopping delivery service, has started to use 1,100 robots to pack all of its grocery deliveries in its automated warehouse. Working across a three-storey grid system, which is the size of three football pitches, each robot can travel as much as 37 miles per day in the company’s Andover warehouse. And they are quick – together they can pack a bag of 50 groceries in an impressive five minutes.

Here are 17 surprisingly dangerous jobs

The robot revolution has also hit the world of banking. ING, a major Dutch bank, replaced 5,800 human staff with robots in 2016. The firm spent a whopping $2 billion (£1.6bn) to fund the automation project, bankroll redundancy payments and improve efficiency.

From sandcastle builder to water slide tester, discover incredible jobs people really do

Financial advisers may have to begin searching for an alternative career at some point soon. Robo-advisers, which use algorithms to manage portfolios, are increasingly replacing their human counterparts. Fidelity Investments, for instance, launched its robo-adviser Fidelity Go in 2016.

Now discover the jobs where robots are least likely to replace humans