Automate show Theater

Gain valuable perspectives from experienced system integrators on what it takes to successfully design, implement, and scale automation solutions. This session will explore real-world challenges, proven best practices, and lessons learned across a range of industries and applications. Attendees will come away with practical insights into project execution, collaboration, and how to maximize the impact of automation investments in an increasingly complex manufacturing environment.

The next era of industrial automation will be shaped by AI-driven systems that are more flexible, scalable, and resilient. In this panel, senior leaders will share their perspectives on how robotics and AI are transforming manufacturing, enabling companies to move beyond fixed automation toward more adaptive production systems.

The discussion will examine the strategic role of physically accurate simulation, synthetic data generation, and simulation-to-real skill transfer in accelerating robot development and deployment. Panelists will also discuss how industrial and collaborative robots are expanding automation across the factory, and what manufacturers must do now to build more agile, efficient, and future-ready operations.

As automation systems grow more software-defined and AI-enabled, the gap between strategy and execution is widening, often due to unspoken concerns about trust. Trust becomes the limiter to scale. Organizations can build impressive pilots, yet they hesitate to let AI influence operations because the path from recommendation to action is rarely deterministic, governed, or auditable. This session brings voices from the top floor to the shop floor to unpack what it really takes to bridge strategy to execution: a shared operating model and an orchestration approach that standardizes how machines behave, how data flows, and how AI can influence decisions safely.

In this panel discussion, an industrial operator, an automation technologist, and a business leader examine how modern automation decisions impact real facilities. The conversation surfaces where intentions break down, and what must change for automation initiatives to succeed at scale. Rather than focusing on products or promises, the discussion centers on lived experience: how control decisions affect operators, how AI transforms responsibilities and the nature of human-machine trust, and how leaders can align teams around outcomes instead of abstractions.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of:

• Why AI-enabled, software-defined automation often stalls between pilot and production
• How to build human-machine trust through governance, transparency, and clear decision rights
• What must change across people, processes, and technology to scale automation beyond experimentation

Witness the next wave of innovation unfold right before your eyes. The Automate Startup Challenge brings early-stage companies in robotics and automation to the stage as they pitch their innovations to a panel of expert judges for a chance to win $10,000 and the title of 2026 Startup Challenge Champion.

The annual Automate Innovation Awards Ceremony recognizes and celebrates the most groundbreaking automation solutions introduced to the market since May 2025. In an era where automation is revolutionizing industries worldwide, these winning innovations not only push the boundaries of technology, but also contribute to the betterment of the economy and consumers at large. Join us in celebrating the pioneers of the industry and be a part of the transformative journey towards a smarter, more efficient and sustainable future.

The path from manual operations to automation is never linear—and far from “plug and play.” In this fast-paced 30-minute panel, two customers who have successfully modernized their facilities join a JBT automation expert and a strategic IT integration partner to share real-world challenges, lessons learned, and the solutions that made full automated material movement possible.

Attendees will hear candid stories about the operational triggers that sparked automation, the surprises of integrating with legacy systems, and the human factors—training, adoption, and building frontline confidence—that ultimately determine success. The discussion also highlights early performance metrics, data-readiness essentials, and strategies to scale beyond a first deployment.

Whether you’re just exploring automation or accelerating an existing roadmap, this session delivers myth-busting clarity, practical guidance, and a forward-looking perspective on achieving connected, intelligent operations. Ideal for leaders in operations, IT, supply chain, warehousing, and automation strategy.

The manufacturing sector has faced a hardware-rich but intelligence-poor reality for decades. While physical automation has matured, it remains constrained by deterministic, hard-coded programming and processes that break the moment they encounter variability. These systems don’t adapt or learn, so are fixed in value. To enable truly adaptive, intelligent production and value - we need the right industrial AI architecture supporting it.

In this keynote, Wendy Tan White will outline the architecture required for the AI-infused "intelligent factory." For the first time, foundation models are making intelligent robotics systems computationally efficient and economical for industrial grade operations. We will explore how integrating faster, cheaper specialized foundation models for core capabilities like machine vision can quickly shift the economics and value potential of robotic systems.

The discussion will dissect the technical reality of applying AI to physical tasks - specifically in high-variability environments common everywhere from machine shops and contract manufacturers to the largest OEMs in the world. We will examine how AI-integrated processes and capabilities can enable awareness at the actuation level - making more sophisticated, valuable solutions practical and possible.

Importantly, this session will demonstrate how democratizing access to these intelligent, reusable and combinable capabilities is an economic imperative. By making the best AI simultaneously accessible and deployable through intuitive modern developer environments and digital twins - we can unlock the talent and value of software engineers and developers in new ways. This shift shows that intelligent, scalable automation is no longer a research project or prediction - it’s a practicality and emerging standard that needs investment today.

Integrated drive actuators combine the motor, gearing, feedback sensors, and servo drive electronics into a single compact, self-contained unit, creating a true “plug-and-play” motion solution. By integrating the drive directly into the actuator housing, these systems dramatically reduce cabling, simplify control architecture, and improve overall reliability while delivering high torque density and precise motion control. Integrated drive actuators are especially valuable in robotics and automation applications where space, weight, and system complexity are critical constraints, enabling cleaner mechanical designs, faster commissioning, and lower total system cost compared to traditional motor-and-drive architectures.

Manufacturers have invested heavily in digital transformation, automation, data collection, and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). Yet many still struggle to turn that investment into meaningful results. They have dashboards, machine data, alarms, and reports, but key questions remain difficult to answer: Where are we losing time? Why is quality drifting? Which sites perform best? And why do so many AI initiatives fail to deliver?

This session answers those questions through a simple analogy: MES is the data refinery. The plant floor is the oil field, producing vast amounts of raw data from sensors, PLCs, and historians. That data is valuable, but not ready for decision-making on its own. MES refines it into structured, contextualized information that analytics and AI can use to drive performance, reduce waste, and accelerate improvement.

The central message is simple: most manufacturers do not have a data shortage—they have a data refinement problem. Too often, organizations push inconsistent shop-floor data into analytics and AI tools expecting breakthrough results. When downtime is coded differently across plants, OEE definitions vary, or traceability is incomplete, the problem is not the AI model. The problem is the data.

Through practical examples, this session shows how manufacturers can unlock more value from the MES they already own. Attendees will see how improving data consistency, standardizing definitions, and strengthening operational discipline can lead to better scheduling, quality, visibility, and alignment across the enterprise.

This topic is especially relevant for manufacturers looking to maximize existing MES investments while preparing for AI. The companies that succeed are typically those that first make their data trustworthy, usable, and comparable across operations. Rather than focusing on hype, this session highlights what manufacturers truly need: clarity, practicality, clean execution, and measurable outcomes.

Attendees will leave with a memorable framework: sensors provide crude oil, MES creates fuel, and AI delivers horsepower. They will also gain a clearer understanding of the steps required to move from data collection to decision advantage.

Ideal for manufacturing conferences, user groups, digital transformation events, leadership summits, and customer meetings, this session resonates with plant leaders, operations executives, IT/OT leaders, and digital transformation sponsors.

For Rain Engineering, the message is clear: we help manufacturers refine the data they already have so they can get more from MES, make smarter decisions, and build a stronger foundation for AI, operational performance, and long-term growth.

Industrial operations are growing more complex, and the companies that simplify that complexity the fastest will lead. Those that hesitate risk being left behind. This session will show how the convergence of automation, electrification, and digital intelligence is reducing operational complexity and giving manufacturers a meaningful competitive edge.

Open, software-defined automation provides a foundation for future ready plants that adapt quickly, deliver measurable value, and stay resilient through constant change. We will discuss how to strengthen energy efficiency, reduce downtime, and support the electrification of critical processes.

We will also explore how teams can modernize faster, integrate with IT systems more easily, and scale innovation across sites rather than being constrained by rigid, closed automation architectures. Building on that foundation, AI and other advanced technologies can be embedded directly into control applications to optimize processes in real time and accelerate the transition toward fully autonomous operations.

Co-Hosted by the International Federation of Robotics

As robotics continues to reshape industries worldwide, staying ahead of emerging trends and technologies is critical for businesses looking to remain competitive. This executive roundtable brings together top leaders from the robotics sector to discuss the innovations, market dynamics, and strategic shifts defining the industry today. The panelists will provide a high-level analysis of where robotics is headed and what it means for businesses across manufacturing, logistics, and beyond. Gain firsthand insights from those driving the future of automation and robotics.

Manufacturers must turn vast streams of sensor and vision data into instant, reliable decisions—but cloud-only architectures can’t meet sub-10 ms control loops or the secure, local processing modern factories require.

In this session Ericsson and Future Tech will explain how private 5G combined with edge computing delivers deterministic latency, network slicing, and on-site compute to enable AI-powered inspection, autonomous vehicle marshaling, predictive maintenance, collaborative robotics, digital twins and AR assistance.

We’ll share real-world deployment patterns, performance targets (sub-20 ms to sub-10 ms), hybrid cloud/edge architecture choices, and practical steps—from pilot to scale—so manufacturers can cut defects, reduce downtime, protect IP, and accelerate digital transformation.

Join us for a pragmatic roadmap to deploy private 5G + edge successfully.

The rapid growth of data centers is reshaping demand for power, infrastructure, and industrial capacity. This session explores how intelligent automation is helping scale deployment while addressing constraints in energy, labor, and supply chains.

In this data-driven session, experts from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) will break down the latest market research, key statistics, and emerging trends shaping the future of automation. We will explore investment patterns, industry growth areas, and the economic forces driving automation adoption across manufacturing, logistics, and beyond. Whether you’re looking for insights on market opportunities, competitive positioning, or the impact of new technologies, this session will provide valuable data-backed perspectives to help you make informed business decisions.

Robots power industries like logistics and automotive, yet hospitals still rely on staff for manual transport tasks—not due to lack of innovation, but because healthcare presents unique challenges for automation.

With clinician burnout at crisis levels, automation could reduce non-clinical work. However, many deployments fail due to three core barriers: infection control, privacy and cybersecurity, and workflow alignment.

Robots in clinical settings must be designed for sterilization, protect sensitive data, and integrate seamlessly into existing workflows. Without this, even advanced systems become liabilities rather than solutions.

This session explores why hospitals are the ultimate stress test for robotics and how context-aware, collaboratively designed systems can enable sustainable automation—freeing caregivers to focus on patient care.

It is not enough to hear about just AI's potential, our community needs rugged, scalable, and proven ROI-positive AI for the real world. Join us as a small set of senior industry leaders discuss the shift from experimental pilots to mission-critical business assets, specifically addressing hardware constraints, data gravity, and the economics of global scaling.

Join us for a special live recording of Automated, A3’s podcast spotlighting the people shaping the future of automation. Host Brian Heater, Managing Editor at A3, sits down with Ali Agha, the Founder and CEO of FieldAI, for an in-depth conversation on the next generation of physical AI-powered robotics, deploying intelligent systems in real-world environments, and what’s ahead for autonomous automation—recorded exclusively at Automate.

Automation projects often begin with high expectations—but many fail to deliver the results companies anticipated. From unclear goals and poor planning to workforce challenges and unrealistic timelines, even well-funded initiatives can struggle to succeed.

In this panel discussion, industry experts will break down the most common reasons automation projects fall short and share practical strategies for getting them right from the start. Attendees will gain insight into how successful companies align teams, define measurable goals, prepare for implementation, and build automation programs that scale. Whether you are just beginning your automation journey or looking to improve existing initiatives, this session will provide actionable guidance to help maximize results and avoid costly mistakes.