Business of Automation

Association for Advancing Automation

The Business of Automation is a weekly video podcast exploring the money, markets, policies, and business decisions shaping industrial automation.Hosted by Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, the show goes beyond the headlines to examine what developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, supply chains, investment, and government policy mean for companies across the automation industry.From humanoid robotics and emerging technologies to market growth, trade policy, and automation ROI, each episode delivers informed analysis for automation leaders, manufacturers, investors, integrators, and anyone building the future of industry. 

Episodes

  1. 1h ago ·  Video

    China’s Robot Lead, Amazon’s $100M Facility and Vogue’s Humanoids

    Five million industrial robots are working in factories worldwide. Amazon is expanding the manufacturing infrastructure behind its robotics network. Vogue is putting humanoids on a runway. Three different stories raise the same business question: when should you buy, build, or borrow a robot? In Episode 6 of The Business of Automation, Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, examines what the latest robotics headlines reveal about deployment, scale and business value. The IFR’s World Robotics 2026 report shows a record 603,000 industrial robot installations in 2025, with China accounting for 59% of the total. The United States moved into second place, but the gap remains enormous. Aaron breaks down what those numbers measure and why industrial robots, warehouse robots, and humanoids need to be understood separately.  Amazon’s planned investment of more than $100 million in Greenwood, Indiana, illustrates a different strategy: bringing more manufacturing capabilities in-house to support an expanding fulfillment and robotics network. Aaron explores when automation demand makes building your own infrastructure a business decision worth considering. Finally, Vogue World’s Unitree humanoids prompt a discussion about marketing spectacle, audience expectations, and the camera robots doing useful work behind the scenes. The question running through all three stories is practical: what job does the robot do, and how does that job justify the investment? LINKS AND RESOURCES Read The Business of Automation on Substack: https://thebusinessofautomation.substack.com Aaron Prather’s analysis of the IFR World Robotics 2026 report: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-numbers-explain-where-global-robotics-heading-aaron-prather-lkt5e Aaron Prather’s A3 analysis, “Amazon Used to Buy Robots. Now It Builds Them.” https://www.automate.org/robotics/industry-insights/amazon-used-to-buy-robots-now-it-builds-them The story behind the Unitree robots at Vogue World Milano: https://www.vogue.com/article/the-story-behind-the-runway-robots-at-vogue-world-2026-milano Explore A3’s free Signal reports: https://www.automate.org/market-intelligence/signal Connect with Aaron Prather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amprather Explore A3: https://www.automate.org

    China’s Robot Lead, Amazon’s $100M Facility and Vogue’s Humanoids

  2. Sep 25 ·  Video

    Permission to Deploy: FCC Robot Reviews, Triton 1 and Mixed-Fleet Standards

    Every robot needs permission before it can scale. This week, Aaron Prather examines three gatekeepers shaping the automation market. The FCC has begun granting conditional approval to specific foreign-made robots, including four Husqvarna robotic lawnmowers and three ANSCER Robotics mobile robots. These decisions show that the U.S. market is not completely closed, but approval is model-specific, conditional and tied to national security and supply-chain commitments. Neptune Medical’s Triton 1 robotic endoscopy system received FDA 510(k) clearance after a 50-patient first-in-human study reported 100% cecal intubation, no adverse events and a 54.2% adenoma detection rate. That regulatory milestone matters, but commercialization still depends on physicians choosing to use Triton and hospitals agreeing to buy it. For mobile robot fleets, ISO 21423 has completed its approval stage and is moving toward publication as a global interoperability standard. InOrbit’s open-source OpenRobOps platform includes what the company calls the first reference implementation of the standard, turning a technical specification into working code. The promise is less vendor lock-in, but interoperability still does not mean plug and play. Aaron explains what buyers should verify before purchasing foreign-made robots, why FDA clearance is a starting gate rather than the finish line and why interoperability requirements belong in every mixed-fleet RFP. LINKS AND RESOURCES Read The Business of Automation on Substack: https://thebusinessofautomation.substack.com FCC conditional approval for ANSCER Robotics: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-996A1.pdf FCC conditional approval for Husqvarna: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-957A1.pdf Neptune Medical’s Triton 1 FDA clearance announcement: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260916350630/en/Neptune-Medical-Receives-FDA-Clearance-for-Triton-Robotic-Endoscopy-System FDA 510(k) record for the Triton 1 System: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfpmn/pmn.cfm?ID=K260503 ISO 21423 standard status: https://www.iso.org/standard/86749.html InOrbit’s OpenRobOps announcement: https://www.inorbit.ai/blog/openrobops-release Subscribe to A3 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a3automate Follow Aaron Prather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amprather Explore A3: https://www.automate.org

    Permission to Deploy: FCC Robot Reviews, Triton 1 and Mixed-Fleet Standards

  3. Sep 18 ·  Video

    1,500 Warehouse Robots, Vention's AI Lab and a $12M Bet on Touch

    Three robotics stories point to the same business lesson: successful deployment depends on far more than the robot. Hai Robotics has been selected to deploy more than 1,500 HaiPick Climb robots for an unnamed European fashion retailer. The planned goods-to-person system includes 1.2 million double-deep storage locations and is designed for a throughput above 24,000 totes per hour. But the strongest signal is not the robot count. The retailer already operates HaiPick systems and is expanding. A first order proves a sales team can win a customer. A repeat order suggests the technology delivered enough value for that customer to invest again. Vention opened a Physical AI lab in Montreal after reporting 400% growth in Physical AI-related revenue and more than 28,000 machines deployed. Its CEO's blunt assessment, "The base model is not the problem," moves the conversation away from demonstrations and toward productization. The bigger questions are whether industrial data is useful, how it is collected and used, and whether AI capabilities can meet the reliability, cost, and variability requirements of production. AIDIN Robotics raised approximately $12.1 million from HD Hyundai Robotics and Samsung Venture Investment. AIDIN's force, torque, and tactile sensing technology helps robots measure contact and control pressure. HD Hyundai and AIDIN plan to develop a five-finger robotic hand and automation for polishing and grinding in shipbuilding and heavy industry, giving the investment a defined industrial application. In Episode 4, Aaron Prather explains how racking and orchestration make warehouse robots useful at scale; how data and execution determine whether Physical AI becomes a product; and how force sensing gives robots the feedback they need after contact. Technology keeps changing, but the deployment playbook does not. The companies that solve the engineering around the robot may be the ones that turn promising technology into systems customers buy again. Read The Business of Automation on Substack: https://thebusinessofautomation.substack.com Hai Robotics' 1,500-robot deployment announcement: https://www.hairobotics.com/news/hai-robotics-selected-deliver-worlds-largest-deployment-rack-climbing-warehouse-robots Aaron Prather's analysis of the Hai Robotics deal: https://www.automate.org/robotics/industry-insights/the-most-important-number-in-hai-robotics-1-500-robot-deal-is-two Vention's Physical AI lab announcement: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/vention-opens-physical-ai-lab-to-bridge-ai-research-and-scalable-industrial-deployment-825567370.html Aaron Prather's analysis of AIDIN Robotics: https://www.automate.org/motion-control/industry-insights/everyone-is-funding-the-robots-brain-hd-hyundai-is-funding-its-fingertips Subscribe to A3 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a3automate Follow Aaron Prather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amprather Explore A3: https://www.automate.org

    1,500 Warehouse Robots, Vention's AI Lab and a $12M Bet on Touch

  4. Sep 11 ·  Video

    The Q2 Numbers Are In: Robot Orders Rise as Demand Moves Beyond Automotive

    North American companies ordered 8,940 robots worth $622 million in the second quarter of 2026. Unit orders increased 4.3% from a year earlier, while order value climbed 21.3%. Those are strong headline numbers, but the bigger story is what changed underneath them. In this episode, Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, joins Principal Analyst Alex Coleman to explain why non-automotive customers accounted for 56% of Q2 robot units and how semiconductors, life sciences, food and consumer goods, metals and automotive components are offsetting continued weakness among automotive OEMs. They also examine whether the gap between unit growth and order value reflects pricing pressure, demand for larger systems or buyers adding more vision and advanced functionality. The conversation explores why automotive OEMs remain under pressure as EV investment slows and trade uncertainty complicates capital planning, why automotive components have held up better and what consumers keeping vehicles longer could mean for parts demand. Aaron and Alex also unpack the sharp swings in collaborative robot orders, with cobots falling to 12.7% of Q2 units, and ask whether the category itself is getting harder to define as capabilities overlap. Finally, they look ahead to Q3 and Q4 and the sectors most likely to shape the rest of 2026, including logistics, material handling, life sciences and semiconductors. Read the Q2 2026 robot order report: https://www.automate.org/market-intelligence/insights/robot-orders-increase-in-q2-as-automation-demand-broadens-across-industries Explore A3 Market Intelligence: https://www.automate.org/market-intelligence Learn more about MI+: https://www.automate.org/market-intelligence/mi-plus Explore The Business of Automation: https://www.automate.org/business-of-automation Subscribe to The Business of Automation newsletter: https://substack.com/@thebusinessofautomation

    The Q2 Numbers Are In: Robot Orders Rise as Demand Moves Beyond Automotive

  5. Sep 4 ·  Video

    Teradyne vs. JAKA, NSF’s $30M Robot Center and Carbon’s 150M Plants

    Three robotics stories reveal where the industry’s next competitive battles are moving: patents, people and data. Teradyne Robotics filed a patent infringement case against JAKA at Europe’s Unified Patent Court. The National Science Foundation committed $30 million over five years to a center studying how people and robots adapt to one another. Carbon Robotics says its Large Plant Model was trained on roughly 150 million labeled plants. In Episode 2 of The Business of Automation, Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, connects these announcements to a larger shift. More of robotics’ value and risk now sit outside the machine itself. Teradyne alleges that multiple JAKA collaborative robot models infringe patents covering hardware and software associated with Universal Robots. Those allegations have not been proven in court. The larger business story is where the case was filed. Historically, enforcing patent rights across Europe could require separate proceedings in multiple countries. A ruling from the Unified Patent Court could potentially affect JAKA products across 17 of its 18 current member states. For robotics manufacturers, integrators and buyers, intellectual property exposure is becoming an increasingly important part of evaluating an automation purchase. The second story focuses on the Center for Human and Robot Co-Adaptation, led by the University of Texas at Austin. The center brings together researchers from six universities and industry partners including Amazon, Apptronik, Diligent Robotics, Google DeepMind, Hello Robot, MassRobotics, NVIDIA and Robust AI. The research is not only about making robots more capable. It is about understanding how people and robots learn from one another and adjust their behavior over time in homes, hospitals, workplaces and public spaces. A robot can perform every task correctly and still fail if the people around it do not trust or accept it. Aaron explains why training, workforce design and clear team leadership should be part of an automation strategy from the beginning. Carbon Robotics provides the clearest example of value moving away from the robot itself. Its LaserWeeder uses computer vision and lasers to identify and eliminate weeds, but its deeper competitive advantage may be the data behind the machine. Carbon says its Large Plant Model was trained using roughly 150 million labeled plants collected across more than 100 crops in 15 countries. That scale allows growers to adapt the system to field conditions using only a few images instead of waiting for an entirely new crop-specific model. The relationship also introduces another business question. iMerit helped provide the annotation infrastructure supporting Carbon’s data flywheel, and iMerit has now been acquired by EXL. When an outside vendor becomes critical to a robot’s performance, a change in ownership can become part of the customer’s risk. Together, these stories raise three questions every automation buyer should ask: What is the intellectual property risk? How will people respond to the system? Who owns the data the machine generates? Read the deeper analysis, with every source linked and every number cited: https://thebusinessofautomation.substack.com This episode is presented by the A3 International Robot Safety Conference, November 3-5, 2026, at Huntington Place in Detroit. Learn more and register: https://www.automate.org/events/international-robot-safety-conference/register Follow Aaron Prather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amprather Explore A3: https://www.automate.org

    Teradyne vs. JAKA, NSF’s $30M Robot Center and Carbon’s 150M Plants

  6. Aug 28 ·  Video

    This is The Business of Automation

    The Business of Automation is a weekly video podcast exploring the money, markets, policies, and business decisions shaping industrial automation. Hosted by Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, the show goes beyond the headlines to examine what developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, supply chains, investment, and government policy mean for companies across the automation industry. From humanoid robotics and emerging technologies to market growth, trade policy, and automation ROI, each episode delivers informed analysis for automation leaders, manufacturers, investors, integrators, and anyone building the future of industry.

  7. Aug 28 ·  Video

    Serve’s Forecast Cut, FORT’s SPAC and SoftBank’s $200M Gravis Bet

    Three robotics stories reveal the same business risk: dependency. Serve Robotics grew revenue 404% year over year and still cut its 2026 forecast by more than 60%. FORT Robotics is pursuing a public listing at a $556.6 million enterprise value. SoftBank invested $200 million in Gravis Robotics, a Swiss startup bringing autonomous capabilities to heavy equipment that companies already own. In the first episode of The Business of Automation, Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, examines what these stories reveal about platform dependency, vendor lock-in, safety infrastructure, retrofit autonomy and the growing concentration of robotics capital. Serve shows what can happen when expected growth relies heavily on another platform’s customers and delivery volume. After lower-than-expected activity through Uber Eats, the company reduced its annual guidance and accelerated its expansion across Grubhub, DoorDash, advertising, software and healthcare robotics. The lesson is not that partnerships are inherently bad. It is that part of your business plan belongs to someone else when your forecast depends on that company’s customers, interface or demand. FORT represents a different strategy. Its safety hardware and software are designed to work across machines, manufacturers and applications. Aaron examines FORT’s effort to become shared safety infrastructure for physical AI, along with the valuation, shareholder-redemption risk and cash questions surrounding its proposed SPAC merger. Gravis is addressing equipment lock-in from another direction. Its retrofit technology can add autonomy across multiple heavy-equipment brands without forcing companies to replace an entire fleet. That model could have implications for construction, mining, agriculture, ports and other industries where replacing existing equipment is economically unrealistic. SoftBank’s investment also adds to its expanding robotics portfolio, creating a tension between increasingly vendor-agnostic technology and increasingly concentrated capital. Together, these stories raise a question every automation buyer should ask: Who controls the relationship your operation depends on? Read the deeper analysis, with every source linked and every number cited: https://thebusinessofautomation.substack.com This episode is presented by the A3 International Robot Safety Conference, November 3-5, 2026, at Huntington Place in Detroit. Learn more and register: https://www.automate.org/events/international-robot-safety-conference/register Follow Aaron Prather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amprather Explore A3: https://www.automate.org

    Serve’s Forecast Cut, FORT’s SPAC and SoftBank’s $200M Gravis Bet
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About

The Business of Automation is a weekly video podcast exploring the money, markets, policies, and business decisions shaping industrial automation.Hosted by Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, the show goes beyond the headlines to examine what developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, supply chains, investment, and government policy mean for companies across the automation industry.From humanoid robotics and emerging technologies to market growth, trade policy, and automation ROI, each episode delivers informed analysis for automation leaders, manufacturers, investors, integrators, and anyone building the future of industry. 

Information

  • Creator
    Association for Advancing Automation
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Business of Automation
  • Show Website
    Business of Automation

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