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Iván Hernández Dalas: Gartner predicts fewer than 20 companies will deploy humanoids at scale by 2028

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From left to right: Unitree’s G1, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, Figure AI’s Figure 02, Apptronik’s Apollo, and Tesla’s Optimus robot. | Source: Unitree, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Apptronik, and Tesla In recent years, humanoid robots have dominated headlines, and the companies developing them have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to get them working in the real world. Despite these efforts, actual humanoid deployments are few and far between, noted Gartner Inc. The market research firm doesn’t expect this to change anytime soon. It said that through 2028, fewer than 100 companies will progress with humanoid proofs of concept beyond experimentation, even though close to 200 exist today. Gartner also predicted that fewer than 20 companies will be going live in production for supply chain and manufacturing use cases. Most deployments of humanoid robots during this time will remain limited to tightly controlled environments, rather than in dynamic and high-throughput operations, it ...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Introducing Sprout, a new humanoid development platform

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In the high-stakes artificial intelligence race, New York-based Fauna Robotics is betting that the path to general intelligence runs through the physical world. Led by founders Rob Cochran and Josh Merel , the startup is developing a specialized hardware and AI platform to move robots out of factories and into the unstructured environments of everyday life. By engineering safe, lightweight, and inexpensive machines, Fauna said it aims to create a data-driven “flywheel” for embodied AI . The company said it is pursuing a vision where general-purpose robots don’t just perform tasks, but also live, work, and play alongside their human counterparts. Startup focuses on building applications over teaching fundamentals Cochran described the concept for Sprout to The Robot Report : “It gives people the tools to start building interesting applications, rather than focusing on the kind of fundamentals that make it quite a small community of roboticists that are able to actually engage wit...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Waabi raises $1B to advance autonomous trucks and robotaxis

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Waabi will apply its Physical AI Platform developed for trucks to robotaxis in an expanded partnership with Uber. Source: Waabi More AI-enabled vehicles are coming to the roads, as Waabi today said it has closed an oversubscribed $750 million Series C round to accelerate its commercialization of autonomous trucks. The company has also secured additional investment from Uber Technologies Inc. and said the strategic partnership will support its expansion into robotaxis. “Waabi’s Physical AI Platform has enabled us to hit an industry-leading pace in the development and commercialization of autonomous trucks over the past few years,” stated Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi. “Our current self-driving capabilities across highways and generalized surface streets have unlocked a new direct-to-customer model that for the first time solves the pain points of the industry and provides an unprecedented opportunity to quickly and seamlessly enter the robotaxi market, delivering a truly...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Robotiq brings sense of touch to physical AI with fingertips for 2F grippers

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Rending of the TSF-85 tactile sensor fingertips on the 2F-85 Adaptive Gripper. Source: Robotiq Robotic end effectors do not need to be humanoid to be more sensitive and effective, according to Robotiq Inc. The company today launched the TSF-85 tactile sensor fingertips for its 2F-85 Adaptive Gripper. It said that its integrated sensing enables robots to reliably feel, understand, and interact with the world at scale. “Physical AI demands more than clever algorithms—it demands reliable interaction with the real world,” stated Vincent Duchaine, chief technology officer for artificial intelligence at Robotiq. “By combining adaptive gripping with high-frequency tactile sensing, we’re giving robots the sense of touch and control they need to generalize across objects, tasks, and environments without the cost and complexity of anthropomorphic hands.” Founded in 2008, Robotiq said it built the TSF-85 on years of research and field experience, with more than 23,000 grippers deployed worl...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Vention raises $110M to accelerate physical AI deployments in manufacturing

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Vention is developing physical AI to unify and accelerate deployment of robotic workcells. Source: Vention Physical AI, the union of artificial intelligence and robotics, is moving toward wider use. Vention Inc. today said it has raised $110 million ($150 million CAD) in Series D funding to advance its research, add capabilities to its software, expand its portfolio of pre-engineered applications, and grow its presence from North America to Europe. Traditional automation is complex and requires a lot of integration work, according to the Montreal-based company . Vention said its Zero-Shot Automation platform combines hardware, software, physical AI, and cloud connectivity to enable faster and more scalable automation of production in support of reshoring . “Manufacturers no longer want automation that requires deep expertise and long commissioning cycles,” stated Etienne Lacroix, CEO of Vention. “They want automation that works as intuitively and reliably as modern software. Physi...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: AAA20 Group debuts cobot palletizer for food and protein processing

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AAA20 Group’s new CP-66-WD wash-down collaborative palletizer. | Source: AAA20 Group AAA20 Group plans to debut its new CP-66-WD wash-down collaborative palletizer at the International Production & Processing Expo, or IPPE, in Atlanta this week. The robot is a sanitary automation system for food manufacturers, particularly beef processors. “Space constraints and stringent sanitation requirements have made automation difficult to deploy in the food industry, particularly in finding solutions to address protein processing labor shortages,” said Marcus Kurle, co-founder of AAA20 Group. “The CP-66-WD was engineered to remove those barriers, giving processors a compact, compliant way to automate one of the most demanding jobs while preserving capital budgets and delivering high hygienic standards,” he noted. Founded in 2020, AAA20 Group specializes in smart robotic palletizing systems. The Las Vegas-based company uses a robot-as-a-service ( RaaS ) model, which it says removes tr...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: State of robotics industry report 2026

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Imaged created using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The robotics industry enters 2026 at an inflection point. After years of innovation, bold claims, and headline-grabbing demonstrations, the conversation is shifting from what robots could do to what they can reliably do in the real world. The Robot Report ‘s State of Robotics Industry Report 2026 examines this transition in detail, offering a clear-eyed assessment of where the market stands today and where it’s headed. This report draws on reporting, interviews, and analysis from across the global robotics ecosystem, spanning industrial automation, mobile robots, humanoids, autonomous vehicles, investments, and emerging technologies and applications. It explores how advances in AI, perception, simulation, compute, and edge software are reshaping robot capabilities. It also highlights the challenges facing developers, integrators, and end users, including safety and reliability to cost, regulation, and deployment timelines. Readers find insig...
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