Robotics & Automation News

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Fort Robotics acquires Mapless AI to expand supervised autonomy and physical AI safety platform

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Fort Robotics, the trust layer for physical AI, has announced the acquisition of Mapless AI, a Boston- and Pittsburgh-based leader in vehicle teleoperation and autonomy supervision.

The acquisition represents a significant commercial expansion of Fort’s Trust Platform, adding two critical new capabilities: remote human-in-the-loop teleoperation and onboard active safety.

By integrating these technologies, Fort expands its market offering from safety-certified machine control to a comprehensive architecture for supervised autonomy. [Read more…] about Fort Robotics acquires Mapless AI to expand supervised autonomy and physical AI safety platform

Matter Management Software vs. Case Management Software: Key Differences

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Legal teams often compare matter management and case management platforms because both organize legal work. The difference is in scope, users, and daily purpose.

Matter management usually supports in-house legal departments that handle contracts, advice requests, compliance questions, corporate records, outside counsel work, and internal approvals.

Case management is more common in law firms, litigation teams, and legal service providers that manage client cases, deadlines, pleadings, evidence, and court-related work. [Read more…] about Matter Management Software vs. Case Management Software: Key Differences

Perspective from Harting: The industrial reality check – why factory winners execute, not just innovate

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Rodriques Johnpeter, global industry segment manager, Harting

Manufacturers are operating in a moment where disruption is the norm, not the exception. Supply chain volatility, inflationary pressure and labor constraints all collide with a parallel push to embed automation and AI into plants that were never designed for today’s technologies.

Most facilities – well over two-thirds globally – are still brownfield sites, built around legacy machines, heterogeneous controls and fragile integrations that have been patched together over decades.

These environments leave almost no room for extended downtime or wholesale rip-and-replace projects, which is where many digital transformation strategies quietly break down.​ [Read more…] about Perspective from Harting: The industrial reality check – why factory winners execute, not just innovate

How AI and Automation Are Reshaping Enterprise Customer Loyalty in 2026

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AI and automation are changing how enterprises build and maintain customer loyalty in 2026.

Companies now use predictive analytics, agentic AI, and real-time personalization to retain customers, reduce churn, and increase lifetime value, moving well beyond points-based rewards programs.

In this guide, we’ll break down how these tools are reshaping loyalty across three areas: churn prevention, personalization at scale, and the shift toward invisible, emotionally driven loyalty experiences. [Read more…] about How AI and Automation Are Reshaping Enterprise Customer Loyalty in 2026

Lightwheel reports $100 million in Q1 orders for physical AI robotics infrastructure

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Lightwheel says it secured approximately $100 million in orders during the first quarter of 2026, reflecting what the company describes as a broader industry shift from robotics experimentation toward real-world deployment infrastructure.

Lightwheel is a robotics infrastructure company that develops simulation, synthetic data, evaluation, and deployment systems for training and scaling physical AI robots in real-world environments.

The company says the orders span simulation, synthetic data generation, evaluation systems, and deployment-oriented robotics infrastructure designed to support physical AI applications at industrial scale.

According to Lightwheel, the demand is being driven not simply by interest in robotics hardware or AI models, but by the growing need for systems capable of training, validating, and deploying robots reliably in real operating environments. [Read more…] about Lightwheel reports $100 million in Q1 orders for physical AI robotics infrastructure

Opinion: Why industrial AI must be trained on physics, not prompts

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By Massimiliano Moruzzi, founder and CEO of Xaba.ai

Walk into any modern manufacturing facility and you’ll see the same tension playing out on the floor: incredibly capable machines, hemmed in by the assumption that everything will go exactly as planned. For decades, that assumption held well enough, but today it’s becoming a liability.

Manufacturers are under mounting pressure to produce faster, absorb more variability, and cut downtime, all while a new wave of AI promises to deliver “intelligence” without the complexity of traditional programming.

The pitch sounds compelling, but most of this AI is built on the same foundation as your company’s chatbot, and you cannot run a factory on prompts. [Read more…] about Opinion: Why industrial AI must be trained on physics, not prompts

Ai2 releases open robotics model designed for real-world AI automation

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The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) has released MolmoAct 2, an open-source robotics foundation model designed to improve how robots perform real-world physical tasks, as researchers continue pushing beyond highly controlled laboratory demonstrations toward more adaptable automation systems.

The new model, announced this week by the Seattle-based AI research organization, is positioned as a major upgrade to its earlier MolmoAct system and reflects a broader industry effort to develop more general-purpose robotics AI capable of adapting to changing environments without extensive task-specific programming.

Ai2 describes MolmoAct 2 as an “open foundation for robots that work in the real world”, arguing that many current robotics systems remain too brittle and heavily tuned for narrow applications. [Read more…] about Ai2 releases open robotics model designed for real-world AI automation

IEEE explores future of ‘networked AI’ where robots learn collectively

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Researchers are increasingly exploring a future in which robots and AI systems do not operate as isolated machines, but instead learn collectively across connected networks – sharing information, adapting to changing environments, and continuously optimizing their own behavior in real time.

That growing area of research – often referred to as “networked AI” – is now the focus of a new special issue from the IEEE Signal Processing Society and the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, which have issued a call for papers examining “Autonomous and Evolutive Optimization in Networked AI”.

While the academic terminology may sound abstract, many of the themes are closely connected to emerging trends already reshaping robotics and industrial automation, including multi-agent robotics, distributed AI systems, edge intelligence, autonomous vehicles, warehouse robot fleets, and collaborative industrial automation. [Read more…] about IEEE explores future of ‘networked AI’ where robots learn collectively

SAP and Cyberwave deploy fully autonomous AI-powered robots in SAP logistics warehouse

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SAP, the global leader in enterprise application software, and Cyberwave, an AI robotics software company, has announced the successful deployment of fully autonomous, AI-powered robots in an active SAP logistics warehouse.

Building on SAP’s strategic expansion of Physical AI capabilities announced last year, this initiative marks a major milestone: SAP is now operationalizing advanced robotics within its own facilities. [Read more…] about SAP and Cyberwave deploy fully autonomous AI-powered robots in SAP logistics warehouse

The Convergence of AI, IoT, and Robotics in Modern Manufacturing

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Manufacturing had long relied on fixed schedules and manual control. Inventories were adjusted following shortages. Machines were repaired only after they broke down.

Production goals were frequently set on assumptions and not from real operational data. That model is changing quickly.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity along with robotics are propelling manufacturing into a more predictive configuration. [Read more…] about The Convergence of AI, IoT, and Robotics in Modern Manufacturing