A guide to Day 1 of RoboBusiness 2026

Today marks the start of RoboBusiness 2026! This year, we’ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of RoboBusiness with the community that made it possible and looking ahead to more years of collaboration and growth.

The event will start at the Santa Clara Convention Center at 9:15 a.m. PT with the opening keynote, “The Next 20 Years of Robotics.” As RoboBusiness marks its 20th anniversary, industry leaders will reflect on the breakthroughs that defined the past two decades and explore the technologies, markets, opportunities, and challenges that will shape the next 20 years. This year, all keynotes will take place in the theatre on the second floor.

This talk will include Rodney Brooks, the co-founder and CTO of Robust AI; Jonathan Hurst, the co-founder and chief robot officer of Agility Robotics; and Ken Goldberg, the William S. Floyd Jr Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley.

At 10:00 a.m., the RoboBusiness show floor will open. There, attendees can find interesting robotics demonstrations, the Engineering Theater, and the Startup Alley.

The day will close with another keynote talk, “Beyond the Demo: AI in Production Robotics” at 4:30 p.m. It will include insights from Bhavana Chandrashekhar, the senior manager of applied science at Amazon Robotics; James Davidson, the chief AI officer at Teradyne Robotics; Ali Raja, vice president of data centers at ABB Robotics; Ram Devarajulu, vice president of deep tech innovations at Cambridge Consultants; and Jon Battles, the vice president of technology strategy at Cobot.

After the final keynote, head back to the exhibitor hall for the Networking Reception presented by Harmonic Drive. The reception will include drinks, light appetizers, and time to connect with other RoboBusiness 2026 attendees and speakers.

Registration for the show is available on site.

Morning breakout session schedule

RoboBusiness 2026 breakout sessions will start at 10:30 a.m. upstairs from the show floor. They include:

Designing Data Programs for Humans, Not Robots: Aaron Bromberg, the head of robotics and physical AI at Instawork, will explain what it takes to capture usable data from real workers on real shifts, and what he has learned putting camera systems into commercial environments at scale. This talk will be in Room 209/210.
Startup Bootcamp Part 1: The Basics to Best Practices: Colleen Anderson, the director of community and events at MassRobotics; John Lanza and Jennifer Audeh, partners at Foley Hoag; and Brooke Fritz, a partner of tech transactions at Foley Hoag, will provide best practices for robotics startups. The session will be in Room 207.
Designing the Robotics Ecosystem for Outdoor Autonomy: In this session, Mel Torrie, the CEO of Autonomous Solutions Inc., will explain why the intersection of autonomous vehicles and advanced robotics will further revolutionize field deployments. It will take place in Room 206.
The Humanoid Bill of Materials: De-Risking the Multi-Billion Dollar Bottleneck: Michelle Sun, the founder of Core Matter Labs, will strip away the marketing hype to expose the stark economic and geopolitical realities of the physical AI supply chain. The session will be in Room 203.
Integrated Drive Actuator Design: Combining Gearheads, Motor, Drive and Sensors for Smarter Motion: Marcel Almonte, a mechatronics applications engineer at Harmonic Drive, will teach attendees how integrated actuators can reduce engineering effort by simplifying system integration, minimizing cabling complexity, shortening testing and commissioning, and accelerating time to market. His session will start at 10:30 a.m.

Sessions starting at 11:30 a.m. include:

Why Food is Physical AI’s Hardest Problem & Most Promising Catalyst: Rajat Bhageria, the founder and CEO of Chef Robotics, will explore what makes food such a demanding benchmark for physical AI. This session will be in Room 209/210.
Startup Boot Camp Part 2: Challenges & Best Practices for Working with Corporate Partners: Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics; Ben Waters, co-founder and CEO of WiBotic; and Colm Prendergast, senior director and head of the Emerging Tech Hub at Analog Devices, will provide actionable strategies for successfully collaborating with corporate partners. The session will take place in Room 207.
Deployment Over Demos: Building Risk-Aware Foundation Models for Safety-Critical Environments: In this fireside chat, Andrey Konchenko, the head of product at FieldAI, will describe how a physics-first foundation model designed specifically for physical AI can address long-standing autonomy challenges in robotics. This talk will be in Room 206.
A Joint-by-Joint Guide to Humanoid Motion: Yoshi Umeno, the global director of business development for robotics at Kollmorgen, and Reginald Duffus, the supervisor of application engineering at Kollmorgen, will provide a practical framework for evaluating motion partners, highlighting comprehensive solutions and co-engineering support to simplify the path from prototype to volume production. It will be in Room 203.
Tactile Sensing Solutions for the Physical AI Era: This panel will include insights from Eric Utley, an applications engineering manager at Protolabs; Ron Zukerman, the director of business development and innovation at VPG; Andrew Gosline, a senior mechatronic systems engineer at Simplexity Product Development; and Dorota Shortell, the CEO of Simplexity Product Development. These experts will discuss how tactile sensing is evolving. It will take place in Room 204.

Plan your afternoon at RoboBusiness 2026

At 12:15 p.m., Bhavana Chandrashekhar, the senior manager of applied science at Amazon Robotics, and Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics, will start the Women in Robotics Luncheon. This ticketed event will include a fireside chat between the two tech leaders. It presents an opportunity for women in the industry to form connections, deepen relationships, and champion increased female representation in robotics leadership.

RoboBusiness 2026 beakout sessions will resume in the afternoon. Sessions starting at 1:15 p.m. include:

From Models to Machines: Building the Open Infrastructure for Physical AI: Nagesh Puppala, the general manager of physical AI and robotics at Intel, will explore the infrastructure required to move physical AI from prototype to production in real-world robotics systems. The talk will be in Room 209/210.
State of Robotics Investments: Sanjay Aggarwal, a venture partner at F-Prime Capital, and Betsy Mulé, a principal at F-Prime, will unveil the firm’s annual “State of Robotics Investments” report, highlighting the latest funding trends, emerging technology categories, and the sectors attracting the most investor interest. The session will take place in Room 207.
Closing the Capability Gap: A Leadership Framework for Scaling Field Robotics: Kenrick Tjandra, the robot deployment lead of Raise Robotics, will provide attendees with a decision rule for allocating engineering capacity, a vocabulary for two hidden failure modes, and the pre-mobilization gates that keep field programs from stalling. He will explain the discipline that separates a demo from a system that scales. His talk will be in Room 206.
Beyond the Pilot: What It Takes to Put Humanoids to Work in Manufacturing: Dr. Weiwei Chen, the founder and CEO of EmbodyX, will share what the company has learned deploying humanoids in real manufacturing environments. This RoboBusiness 2026 session will be in Room 203.
How Robotics and Physical AI are Transforming Modular Data Center Construction: Ali Raja, the vice president of data centers at ABB Robotics, will explore how robotics, prefabrication and modular construction can work together to streamline delivery, reduce pressure on scarce labor and scale data center capacity. The talk will be in Room 204.

Talks starting at 2:15 p.m. include:

Physical AI Doesn’t Have a Data Problem; It Has a Deployment Problem: Rudy Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of Inbolt, will reframe where physical AI actually pays off. Cohen said this happens not in bigger models, but in closing the loop at servo frequency and collapsing the months of fixtures, wiring, and retuning that make every deployment a six-figure project. This will take place in Room 209/210.
The Economics of Robotics: Is This Business Viable? Jack Pearson, an investment principal at RoboStrategy, will offer a set of mental models for judging whether a robotics business can create real value and capture it in a way that lasts. The session will be in Room 207.
Lessons Learned Building Reliable Outdoor Robots: This panel will feature insights from Ben Waters, co-founder and CEO of WiBotic; Vibhor Sood, co-founder and VP of engineering at Burro; Derek Chase, the vice president of robotics and AI at Nextpower; and Ben Choster, the founder of Catalyze Robotics. The panel will demonstrate how engineering decisions impact reliability, uptime, operational efficiency, and total cost of ownership. It will take place in Room 206.
A Crash Course in Force & Torque Sensing for Humanoids: Robert Brooks, the founder and CEO of ForceN, will summarize learnings from working with many of world’s top humanoid companies over the past three years. His talk will be in Room 203.
Functional Safety for Humanoid Actuators: Jordan Schaeffer, the manager of business development at Novanta, will explore how safe motion, torque control, fault detection, and actuator-level safety functions can help reduce risk while maintaining performance. The talk will take place in Room 204.

RoboBusiness 2026 talks starting at 3:30 p.m. include:

How Agentic Coding Empowers Lean Teams to Build Faster: Anthony Jules, the co-founder and chief innovation officer at Robust AI, will explore how AI agents are transforming the robotics development lifecycle right from the initial design phase. The talk will be in Room 209/210.
The RaaS Playbook: Pricing, Service & Scale: This panel will include insights from Rick Faulk, the CEO of Locus Robotics; Bill Booth, who leads technology sales, marketing, and business development at Roboworx; and Alex Linde, the chief product officer at Aescape. The speakers will provide attendees with practical strategies for building sustainable RaaS offerings that deliver value for both robotics providers and their customers. The panel will take place in Room 207.
Designing Dexterous Learning Robots for Outdoor Labor: Brent Shedd, the founder and CEO of AgRobotics, will deliver a practitioner-level framework: What’s working, what’s hard, and what a realistic path to commercial deployment actually looks like. The talk will be in Room 206.
Can Humanoids be Safe? Benjamin Twombly, the founder and CEO of Critical Systems Analysis, will share insights into both the continuity and the evolution of safety thinking as it adapts to intelligent, human-like machines operating in dynamic, real-world contexts. His session will take place in Room 203.
What AI-Defined Automation Looks Like in Production: François Giguére, the chief technology officer at Vention, will give attendees a framework for evaluating AI-defined automation in their own operations. The talk will be in Room 204.

Engineering Theater talks

On the show floor, we’ll be running talks in the Engineering Theater throughout the day. The talks include:

Sensor Solutions for Humanoids: Tools to Build the Future: Uma Krishnamoorthy, the senior director of core technology at InvenSense, will explore sensing solutions enabling today’s humanoid innovations. Her talk will start at 11:00 a.m.
The Robot Out of the Cage. Advanced Functional Safety for Humanoids: Jan Kaiser, the head of marketing at Synapticon, will discuss how certifiable safety architecture will lay a path towards real-world deployments for humanoids. The talk will start at 11:45 a.m.
From First Flash to Field Repair: Servicing Robots From a Tablet: Reed Giovannetti, co-founder and CEO of DeviceNexus, will work through the engineering questions behind keeping robots running, on the bench and in the field. This session will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Simulation Said Go. The Binary Said No: Keeping Robots Inside Their Requirements in the AI Era: Stojan Gancev, the VP of R&D at Aurora Labs, will discuss the importance of reasoning straight from the architecture, from the compiled binary sitting on the target processor, rather than trusting review and simulation to catch what they structurally cannot see. It will start at 2:00 p.m.
Shared Spaces: Navigating Challenges for Indoor Robots: This RoboBusiness 2026 panel session will include insights from Aaron Edsinger, co-founder and CEO of Hello Robot, and Matt Anderson, co-founder and CEO of A&K Robotics. The two will discuss how solving navigation challenges will be critical to achieving broad consumer acceptance and large-scale deployment. It will start at 3:30 p.m.