UR’s Jonathan Sbert giving his opening keynote at Collaborate North America 2025. | Credit: Brianna Wessling, The Robot Report
Universal Robots A/S held the first U.S.-based event in its global series of regional conferences and trade shows this week in Novi, Mich. Collaborate North America 2025 brought together around 750 partners and potential customers to show off collaborative robot technologies in the UR+ Partner Ecosystem and to discuss the future of the industry.
“The reason this event has been so successful is because it’s the place where we actually get end users, our partners, and our distributors all together,” Jonathan Sbert, vice president of sales for the Americas at Universal Robots (UR), told The Robot Report. “Typically, of course, we have our salespeople out there talking to end users and talking to our partners, but it’s rare that we’re actually all together in one place.”
Sbert said an event like this, which the company has also held in Mexico and China, puts UR at the center, unlike a typical trade show. “It tends to be a little bit more about us and less about the trade show,” he said.
“It’s the one time where we can bring end users around with our partners because we do have a lot of partners. We’ve got over 1,200 globally, so it’s hard for us to really represent all their capabilities,” Sbert said. “It’s great for them to kind of showcase their skills and what they can offer so the end users can see that directly.”
The U.S. is UR’s third-largest cobot market
The U.S. currently Universal Robot’s third biggest cobot market in the world, after Europe and Asia, and the company is interested in growing its presence. The Odense, Denmark-based unit of Teradyne Inc. hopes to do more regional shows like Collaborate in the Southeast and Northeast, said Sbert. This way, it can go directly to its customers instead of making them spend their already tight budgets on traveling to larger shows.
This outreach strategy should also help Universal Robots reach more small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) across the U.S., Sbert said. The number of SMEs is both a strength and a weakness in the market.
“It’s a lot of small and medium-sized enterprises. Of course, you have large automotive and large pharmaceuticals and the industries that we work in today,” Sbert said. “However, a lot of these customers are small mom-and-pop shops, if you will, that are loyal to their employees. And sometimes, automation can be seen as a threat to those employees.”
Universal Robots said this isn’t the case. Instead, it claimed that its robot arms can make operations more efficient while aiding human workers.
Collaborate shows off partner network
A.I. Automation demonstrates its explosion-proof painting robot with the UR20 at Collaborate 2025. | Credit: Brianna Wessling
The stars of Collaborate were the members of the UR+ ecosystem. These partners put together about 30 different cobot-powered systems to demonstrate applications such as welding, quality inspection, material handling, machine tending, assembly, painting, and palletizing.
“At the end of the day, the reason our partner network works is our robot really does nothing out of the box; it’s just a general-purpose product,” Sbert said. “So, the ecosystem for us is truly the way end users make our product do something that they need done.”
“When we look for partners, we’re always looking for subject matter expertise,” he continued. “Of course, we have some general-purpose partners that can pretty much do any solution that a customer needs. But we also really want to get deep into certain verticals.”
For example, welding, an increasingly common application for cobots, requires a high level of expertise, Sbert said. Universal Robots then seeks out partners with expertise in such applications, making its partner ecosystem essential to its business model.
“Building something that’s outside of the robot is not something that is really in our ambitions,” Sbert said. “At the end of the day, I think our strength is our partner network. Compared to our competition, I think we stand on our own when it comes to not only the breadth of partners but the true engagement that we have with them.”
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UR plans for 2025 and beyond
At Collaborate, Sbert hinted at Universal Robots’ next product releases. “The great thing about having 1,200 partners is you have 1,200 points of feedback on what the next product could be or how you can make this product better,” he said.
“For us, the name of the game in this robotic space is payload, reach, and speed. Those are the three levers that we can work with. Right now, our longest-reaching robots also have some of the highest payloads. Sometimes, you just need reach; you don’t necessarily need payload,” Sbert said. “I think there are different mixes that you can do to really make sure the customer’s not overpaying for something that they’re not really utilizing.”
In addition, artificial intelligence and machine learning, paired with fewer people going to school for skilled labor positions, means there will be many opportunities cobots, Sbert said.
“There’s going to be a shortage of skilled labor,” he said. “I think there’s going to be a massive opportunity to see where automation can really help fill the gaps.”
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