If you think of welding robots in a car factory when you hear "robotics," you've missed five years.
Mentions of robotics in our trend dataset have increased tenfold – from 4 to 45 per year. But the real surprise isn't the growth. It's, where Robots are appearing today: in warehouses, on roads, in hospitals, on construction sites, and in data centres.
The robotics revolution isn't happening in the future. It's happening now – and most businesses are not ready.
A logistics manager we work with could no longer staff his night shift. Cobots have been standing there for eight months. Amortisation period: under a year. His competitor is still looking for staff.
The problem: Robotics is underestimated because it has become invisible
Robots in 2026 do not look like they do in science fiction films. They look like autonomous forklifts in your warehouse, drones inspecting your infrastructure, or cobots standing next to your employees on the assembly line. They are smaller, quieter, and more discreet than ever before.
That's precisely why they are underestimated. That's precisely why many companies miss the point where automation is no longer optional, but economically imperative. The shortage of skilled workers in manufacturing and logistics is continuing to worsen. Labour costs are rising. And suddenly, the robot that was too expensive three years ago is now paying for itself.
What our Innovation Radar shows
Autonomous vehicles
TRIAL
With 169 mentions are the fastest-growing category in the robotics cluster. The technology first appeared on our radar in 2020. Just five years later, it reached a new record with 57 mentions in 2025.
The turning point came in 2023 when Waymo and Cruise launched their commercial robotaxi services in US cities. That was the moment when "autonomous driving" moved from a research vision to a commercial product.
However, for most of our customers, it's not about robotaxis. It's about autonomous logistics:Last-mile delivery, factory site transport, autonomous shuttles between buildings, driverless transport systems in the warehouse. The underlying technology is the same – the application is much closer to your day-to-day business than a robotaxi in San Francisco.
Robotics (Cobots & Humanoids)
ASSESS
This is perhaps the most important news in the entire robotics cluster: collaborative robots (cobots) have in several manufacturing segments cost parity with manual labour reached. The investment in a cobot is no longer amortised in years, but in months.
Humanoid robots began to dominate discussions in 2023, but the real revolution is happening with "boring" cobots: easy to program, safe enough for human collaboration, and now also economically attractive for medium-sized companies that haven't yet automated.
Battery technology
TRIAL
Without batteries, there are no robots, no electric cars, no renewable power grid. Solid-state batteries and lithium supply chain risks dominate the current discussion.
What most people overlook: For companies with robot fleets – AGVs, AMRs, drones – it will battery prognosis to a real competitive advantage. Unplanned downtime due to battery degradation causes costly standstill times. According to our analysis, those who can predict the condition of their batteries can reduce unplanned robot downtime by up to 30% reduce and replacement costs by up to 12% reduce (Evidence C – Horizon 12–24 months).
3D printing / Additive manufacturing
ASSESS
An interesting counter-trend: 3D printing peaked in 2025 with 10 mentions and fell to zero in 2026. This does not mean the technology has failed. It means that it mature and has arrived in its niche overall.
Additive manufacturing is no longer a trend. It is a tried-and-tested tool for specific applications: prototyping, spare parts on demand, individual medical products, tool inserts with internal cooling. But for broad series production, it remains a supplement, not a replacement. In our consulting, we deprioritize 3D printing in general proposals unless the customer has a specific manufacturing use case.
Electric vehicles: The context that connects everything. With 157 mentions over ten years and a stable ADOPT Electric cars are no longer an innovation – they are mainstream. Steady at 37% in 2025 and 36% in 2026. But they are driving demand for batteries, autonomous driving and robotics. The robotics cluster is a cohesive ecosystem, not a collection of isolated trends.
What we see with our clients – and what follows from that
Three use cases with the greatest leverage
Our Execution Playbook identifies three robotics applications with the highest implementation potential – not theoretically, but based on what we see in customer projects:
Vision QA Cell
End-of-line defects are detected too late, causing avoidable scrap and rework.
–15% Scrap costs
AMR Intralogistics Orchestration
Manual refilling creates stockouts on the line and unnecessary picker travel paths.
98% On-Time Line Feeding
Robot Fleet Battery Prognostics
Unplanned battery degradation causes recurring downtimes for AGV and AMR fleets.
–12% Replacement procurement
Regulation: Three deadlines you need to know
Anyone planning robotics projects now needs to consider these compliance requirements from the outset. Retrofitting is always more expensive than forethought.
What you should consciously avoid
The discipline of saying no is as important in robotics as the willingness to say yes. Automate the right cells first. The rest will follow when the data infrastructure is ready.
Broad humanoid pilots for undefined shop-floor tasks. Without a clear process and measurable goal, it's money-burning with an innovation veneer.
Building your own robot hardware when certified commercial platforms already cover the use case. Build vs. Buy has a clear answer here.
A complete digital twin of the entire factory before telemetry standardisation. Create the data foundation first, then the simulation. Not the other way around.
Our recommendation: ASSESS with selective trial islands
The field of robotics as a whole is built on ASSESS – observe and act purposefully. But individual technologies already have TRIALStatus achieved: Autonomous vehicles and battery technology are ready for active piloting, especially for customers in manufacturing and logistics.
The biggest levers in the next 12 months: Vision-based quality control (8 points higher first-pass yield, 15% lower scrap costs), AMR Intralogistics Orchestration (25% fewer picker travel distances, 98% on-time line feeding) and Battery Prognostics for Robot Fleets (30% fewer unplanned outages).