Normally, I begin off these annual highlights posts by saying that it was the very best yr ever for robotics. However this yr, I’m not so positive. At the end of 2024, it actually appeared like AI and humanoid robots have been poised to make a transformative quantity of progress in the direction of some form of practicality. Whereas it’s definitely true that progress has been made, it’s onerous to rationalize what’s truly occurred in 2025 with the sum of money and hype that has suffused robotics over the course of the yr. And for higher or worse, humanoids are overshadowing every part else, elevating questions on what’s going to occur if the businesses constructing them in the end don’t succeed.
We’ll be going into 2026 with each optimism and skepticism, and we’ll maintain doing what we at all times do: speaking to the consultants, asking as many onerous questions as we will, and ensuring to share all the cool robots, even (or particularly) those that you just gained’t see anyplace else.
So thanks for studying, and to all you superior robotics of us on the market, thanks for sharing your work with us! IEEE Spectrum has a bunch of thrilling new stuff deliberate for 2026, and as we shut out 2025, right here’s a fast look again at a few of our greatest robotics tales of the yr.
Eddie Man
Humanoid robots are onerous, they usually’re onerous in numerous other ways. For a few of these methods, we a minimum of perceive the issues and what the options will probably contain. However there are different issues that haven’t any clear options, and most humanoid firms, particularly the well-funded ones, appear quite happy to wave those problems away whereas persevering with to boost extraordinary quantities of cash. We’re going to maintain calling this out every time we see it, and count on much more skepticism in 2026.
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Safety is a kind of pesky little issues that’s tremendous essential in robotics however that early-stage robotics companies sometimes deal with as an afterthought as a result of it doesn’t drive funding. Chinese language producer Unitree is actually the one firm with humanoids robots which can be accessible sufficient and inexpensive sufficient for intelligent individuals to carry out a safety audit on them. And to the shock of nobody, Unitree’s robots had serious vulnerabilities, which as of but haven’t all been fastened.
The factor I respect concerning the of us at Amazon Robotics is how relentless they’re find artistic options for problems at scale. Amazon merely doesn’t have time to fiddle, they usually’re designing robots to do what robots do greatest: specific repetitive tasks in structured environments. Within the present local weather of robotics hype, it’s refreshing, truthfully.
Did I point out that humanoids robots are onerous? Whether or not or not anybody can ship on the guarantees being made about them (and personally, I’m leaning increasingly more strongly in the direction of not), progress is being made in the direction of humanoids that are much more capable and versatile than they ever have been. The collaboration between Toyota Research and Boston Dynamics on massive conduct fashions is only one instance of how far we’ve come, and the way far we nonetheless should go.
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My least favourite story to write down occurred proper on the finish of the yr—iRobot filed for bankruptcy. This was not a complete shock; regulators shutting down an acquisition by Amazon in 2024 primarily gutted the corporate, and it’s been limping alongside in the direction of the inevitable since then. Proper after the information was introduced, we spoke with iRobot co-founder and ex-CEO Colin Angle, who had a lot to share about the place issues went flawed, and what we will study from it.
Evan Ackerman
My favourite story of 2025 was as a lot about cows because it was about robots. I used to be astonished to study simply what number of totally autonomous robots are onerous at work on dairy farms around the world, and totally delighted to additionally study that these robots are actively bettering the lives of each dairy farmers and the dairy cows themselves. Dairy farming is countless onerous work, however thanks to those robots, small household farms are in a position to maintain themselves sustainable (and sane). All people wins, due to the robots.
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