2023 year in review: GenAI, humanoids dominate robotics industry

On the present this week, editors Steve Crowe, Gene Demaitre, and Mike Oitzman sit down and evaluate their favourite robotics information tales from 2023.

This episode additionally options UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg, Work together Evaluation’ Ash Sharma, ASTM Worldwide’s Aaron Prather, The New Warehouse’s Kevin Lawton, and Formant’s Jeff Linnell. All of them share their ideas on essentially the most attention-grabbing robotic information of the 12 months.

On the high of our record is the splash that generative AI and humanoid robots have made this 12 months, and the audio system additionally present a snapshot of the state of the robotics business.

High tales of the 12 months

So what had been the most important robotics information tales of the 12 months?

1. Generative AI and its affect on robotics improvement.
2. In 2023, builders introduced a historic number of humanoid robots, together with the next:
3. Within the warehousing and logistics market, autonomous trailer unloading was one of many purposes that matured as a number of distributors launched and deployed new methods into actual buyer purposes for the primary time. That is an space to observe within the coming years as a result of trailer unloading stays a bottleneck in logistics workflows.
4. On the draw back, within the first half of 2023, the North American robotics market ordered 16,865 robots, down 29% in contrast with the primary half of 2022, according to the Affiliation for Advancing Automation. Funding funding for robotics startups additionally dried up in comparison with current years.
5. Lastly, the most important failure of the 12 months and the most important setback got here with the California DMV rescinding of Cruise’s autonomous operations permit. This occurred after a number of incidents the place the GM unit’s robotaxis did not function successfully on public roads. Because of this, Cruise ceased all autonomous automobile (AV) operations within the U.S., made changes to executive leadership, and laid off 24% of its workforce. These occasions rocked the autonomous driving market in 2023 and put super strain on the remaining AV distributors.

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