In Episode 267 of The Robot Report Podcast, our editorial team, including Steve Crowe, Eugene Demaitre, Mike Oitzman, and Brianna Wessling, recap the 2026 RoboBusiness event.
The event took place on Oct. 20 to 21 in Santa Clara, Calif., and drew more than 2,000 attendees for a gathering focused on the latest developments in the robotics industry. Highlights included the keynote panels, the Women in Robotics lunch, various sessions, and the expo floor.
If you attended the show with a conference pass, stay tuned; we’ll share details soon on how to access audio from all recorded sessions.
The opening keynote for RoboBusiness 2026 featured Steve Crowe moderating a panel that included Rodney Brooks, Ken Goldberg, and Jonathan Hurst.
Bhavana Chandrashekhar, senior manager of applied science at Amazon Robotics, is interviewed at the Women in Robotics Lunch by Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics.
There was a packed lunch crowd for the 2026 Women in Robotics lunch.
The RoboBusiness 2026 panel on “Beyond the Demo: AI in Production Robotics” talked about how AI is actually being used today.
Mike Oitzman (senior editor, The Robot Report), Rick Faulk (CEO, Locus Robotics), Bill Booth (technology sales, marketing, and business development, Roboworx), and Alex Linde (chief product officer, Aescape) were on stage at the “RaaS Playbook” panel.
This was the 20th anniversary of the RoboBusiness event. This was also the last event under the RoboBusiness brand. The event has been renamed to Robotics Summit West and will run again in October 2027 under the new name.
Learn more about the Robot Operations Group
The Robot Operations Group (ROG) is a cross-industry group aimed at developing and sharing best practices for the operation at scale of autonomous robots. The group was founded by Florian Pestoni and Joe Wieciek. It held RoboOpsCon26 the day after RoboBusiness.
RoboBusiness recap timeline
- 1:45 – RobOps Con review by Mike Oitzman
- 3:27 – RoboBusiness 2026 recap from Steve Crowe
- 6:50 – Women in Robotics lunch recap with Brianna Wessling
- 11:02 – RaaS Playbook panel recap from Oitzman
- 13:02 – Keynotes recap (all editors)
- 17:19 – “Beyond the demo” panel recap with Eugene Demaitre
- 18:47 – “State of Humanoids” keynote recap by Oitzman
- 22:30 – “Navigating complicated indoor environments” panel recap by Wessling
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