By Yonas Teodros Tefera, research team lead of the Vicarios Lab in the Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology
Remote work has largely been defined by office jobs. Video calls, shared documents, and digital collaboration tools have allowed knowledge workers to operate from almost anywhere. But for millions of workers in manufacturing, maintenance, logistics, and field operations, the idea of working remotely has remained out of reach.
That boundary is starting to shift.
Telepresence technologies are emerging as a way to extend remote work into hazardous and high-risk environments. By combining robotics, immersive interfaces and low-latency connectivity, these systems make it possible to interact with physical environments without being physically present.
What we see today in remote work represents an early stage of development. The next phase expands these capabilities to include performing physical tasks remotely, including those traditionally tied to the factory floor or field site.
Moving Beyond Basic Remote Interaction
Current remote collaboration tools are built primarily around audio and video. They allow people to communicate efficiently, but they provide only a limited sense of presence. Workers can observe and converse but cannot directly interact with the environment in a meaningful way. Telepresence systems are designed to close that gap.
Advances in virtual reality, real-time data communication and rendering, and haptic feedback are making remote interaction more immersive and intuitive. Instead of watching a process through a screen, a user can begin to “step into” a remote environment, controlling robotic systems with increasing precision while receiving visual and physical feedback.
Low-latency connectivity is a critical enabler. Without near-instant feedback, remote manipulation becomes impractical. As networks improve, the delay between human input and robotic response continues to shrink, allowing for more natural and responsive control. The result is a shift from passive observation to active participation.
Enabling Remote Work in Physical Industries
Remote work is beginning to extend into physically intensive industries, creating new possibilities for how tasks are performed. Many industrial tasks, such as equipment maintenance, infrastructure inspection, assembly, and diagnostics, require both physical interaction and human judgment.
Telepresence allows these tasks to be performed remotely through robotic platforms. A worker can operate tools, inspect components, or navigate complex environments without being physically present at the site.
Adoption is likely to happen in stages: The first stage is already visible in remote assistance, where off-site experts guide on-site workers through complex procedures. The next stage involves partial teleoperation, where specific tasks are executed remotely while others remain manual.
As systems become more capable, fully immersive teleoperation will become viable for a wider range of applications. At that point, remote work in industrial settings moves from exception to standard practice in selected use cases.
Improving Safety Through Distance
Safety is one of the most immediate benefits of telepresence. Industrial environments often expose workers to hazards such as heavy machinery, extreme conditions, confined spaces, and toxic materials. In many cases, risk mitigation relies on protective equipment and strict procedures, but the underlying exposure remains. Telepresence changes the equation by removing the need for physical presence.
Robotic systems can be deployed in environments that are dangerous or unstable, while human operators remain in controlled settings. This approach is already being explored in areas such as infrastructure inspection and disaster response. For example, in emergency scenarios, robots can enter damaged buildings, assess structural conditions, or detect gas leaks before human teams are deployed. In routine operations, similar systems can reduce exposure to repetitive strain or long-term environmental risks.
Over time, integrating telepresence into standard workflows could lead to measurable improvements in workplace safety and risk management.
Addressing Labor Shortages and Workforce Shifts
Many industrial sectors are facing persistent labor shortages. An aging workforce, combined with declining interest in physically demanding roles, is creating operational challenges across manufacturing and field services.
By enabling remote or hybrid work models, organizations can expand their talent pool beyond geographic constraints. Workers who may not be able to relocate or perform physically intensive tasks can still contribute through remote operation.
This shift also supports continuity. Experienced workers can extend their careers by transitioning to remote roles, preserving institutional knowledge that might otherwise be lost.
Importantly, telepresence should be understood as augmenting human capability rather than replacing it. Industrial work often requires adaptability and problem-solving in dynamic environments, which are strengths that human operators bring to telepresence systems.
The Role of AI in Enhancing Telepresence
Telepresence systems rely heavily on the quality and completeness of feedback provided to the operator. Even with high-resolution video, remote environments can lack sense of depth and spatial relationships, context, or sensory detail. Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to address these limitations.
AI can enhance visual input, reconstruct environments in three dimensions, and highlight relevant features in real time, improving spatial awareness. It can also augment haptic systems by generating more realistic tactile feedback—such as simulating texture, resistance, or force, helping operators better “feel” remote interactions through robotic interfaces. In parallel, AI can provide predictive insights, allowing operators to anticipate system behavior or detect potential issues before they escalate.
This does not replace human control but instead supports it by filling gaps in perception and improving situational awareness. The combination of human expertise and machine intelligence is what makes advanced telepresence systems effective in complex, real-world environments.
Barriers to Adoption
Despite strong technical progress, several challenges remain, with trust being a primary concern. Organizations need confidence that telepresence systems will operate reliably and safely, particularly in high-risk or regulated environments. Any failure in connectivity or feedback can have serious consequences.
Privacy and data security also require careful attention. Telepresence systems depend on continuous streams of visual and sensor data, raising questions about how that data is collected and used. Transparent system design and clear policies will be essential to building trust.
Standards for remote operation, liability, and certification are still evolving, making regulation an additional roadblock. As telepresence becomes more widespread, regulatory frameworks will need to adapt to ensure safe and consistent deployment.
Finally, there is the human factor. Even with advanced technology, creating a true sense of presence remains a challenge. Systems must be designed to feel intuitive and responsive, minimizing the cognitive load on operators.
A Gradual but Transformative Shift
The transition to telepresence-enabled work will be incremental. Early adoption will focus on use cases where the value is clear: hazardous environments, hard-to-reach locations, or tasks requiring specialized expertise that are not available on-site. As systems improve and familiarity increases, broader applications will follow.
Telepresence creates new opportunities for safer, more flexible, and more accessible forms of work. By enabling people to interact directly with distant environments, it challenges long-standing assumptions about where and how industrial work must be performed.
Efforts such as IEEE Telepresence, an initiative bringing together researchers and industry stakeholders, reflect the growing recognition that advancing these systems requires collaboration across disciplines, from robotics and networking to human-computer interaction.
The shift will take time, and adoption will vary by industry and application. However, the direction is clear. As telepresence technologies continue to mature, the boundary between physical presence and remote capability will become increasingly difficult to define, and physically demanding work will be part of that transformation.
About the author: Yonas Teodros Tefera (PhD) is the research team lead of the Vicarios Lab in the Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). His research focuses on developing teleoperation systems, multimodal immersive interfaces, and robotic autonomy for operation in complex and unstructured environments.
Dr Tefera holds a Bachelor of Science from Bahir Dar University, a master’s degree from the University of Trento, and earned his PhD jointly from the University of Verona and IIT.
Tefera is also the outreach co-chair for IEEE Telepresence, an IEEE Future Directions initiative launched in 2021 with a focus on advanced telepresence technology that enables a user’s remote presence at a different physical location. IEEE Telepresence creates a community for projects, events and activities on telepresence technologies.
