VC reflects on robotics trade show season

In its heyday, Detroit was the fourth-largest city in the U.S., manufacturing 75% of the country’s automobiles. Today, its rank has fallen to 27, claiming one of the lowest per capita incomes in the country and producing fewer than 20% of our cars.

Last month, as I walked the halls of Automate with robot arms in trade show booths vibrating, spinning, and compressing their loud motors, I left with the feeling that the Motor City could experience an urban renaissance led by A3, or the Association for Advancing Automation.

“Our data across a 30-year period tells us that robots are helping to save and create jobs,” said Jeff Burnstein, A3’s president, when asked about the impact of robots on jobs. “When robot sales increase, employment also rises, and vice versa. The real risk to jobs is when companies can’t compete, as we see from the empty factories that are so visible right here in Detroit.”

“Advances in technology mean jobs will be different. But that’s always been the case: 30 years ago, there was no such thing as a digital marketing manager or search engine optimization specialist,” he added. “Robots are tools to help companies improve productivity, increase quality, speed time to market, and ultimately win more business and hire more people. The jobs of the future will be better, safer, and higher paying.”

Automate has grown up. What started as a dog leg of ProMat is now its own annual show. A3’s event has already outgrown Detroit’s Huntington Place Convention Center, with over 45,000 attendees crowding the space. Note that Automate will return to Chicago in 2026, taking over McCormick Place.

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Interest in Cambrian explodes

This year, not a single corner of the massive trade show floor remained open. For four days, robots reigned supreme over the city, with every manufacturer making the pilgrimage to see the latest technology that might advance their domestic workflows amid a trade war.

I witnessed this firsthand while working the booth of portfolio company, Cambrian Robotics, with a steady stream of automotive engineers arriving on tour buses to catch a glimpse of AI-infused, 3D computer vision technology.

Cambrian’s suite of workflow applications, using a wide range of OEM robot arms, garnered attention from prospective users. Automotive executives saw the speed and ease of robotic brake assembly, metal-hinge bin picking, and picking and placing of transparent objects.

The biggest draw, possibly even surpassing Agility Robotics’ humanoids, was Cambrian’s two-arm UR wire harness and insertion demo (see below). This example illustrates the current capabilities of large language models (LLMs) in the field of robotics.

This simulation feasibility study trains robots in even more scenarios than they will encounter in the real world, thus enabling the quick deployment of deterministic, mission-driven systems that complete the job, regardless of manipulation mishaps. This new wave of AI-driven products was not limited to Cambrian or other computer vision offerings and was a general theme of this year’s shows.

Startups advance with AI

I’ve judged the Automate startup competition almost consistently since the show’s inception. This year may have been the most impressive group of startups, including one backed by robotic luminary Daniel Theobald.

The cohort included numerous companies utilizing foundational AI models to push the envelope of robotics. Two standouts were Kinisi (the winner) and Nexus Intelligence (my runner up).

Kinisi has developed a wheeled, two-armed robot with a small head appendage that hinges up and down. Nine months earlier, the founder Brennand Pierce, posted on LinkedIn about his newest product, which uses OpenAI to learn new behaviors.

“The key takeaway from the video is that all the robot’s behaviors are generated by the LLM,” he asserted. “It only knows a few basic functions: open/close gripper, move arm, and process input from the vision pipeline. From these, it can interpret my voice commands and combine them into more complex tasks. In this example, it passes me a ‘cold drink’ by recognizing a can of Coke in front of it.”

Nexus, a deserving honorable mention, developed a generative AI platform to connect industrial automation control systems, such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), to co-pilot programming platforms, thereby speeding up integrations.

I’m sobered by Rodney Brooks’ view on LLMs, expressed last year in TechCrunch: “People say, ‘Oh, the large language models are gonna make robots be able to do things they couldn’t do.’ That’s not where the problem is. The problem with being able to do stuff is about control theory and all sorts of other hardcore math optimization.”

“It’s not useful in the warehouse to tell an individual robot to go out and get one thing for one order, but it may be useful for elder care in homes for people to be able to say things to the robots,” he added.

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