500+ manufacturing professionals from across North America, automation specialists, educators, and industry thought leaders from MIT, Siemens, and the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) recently came together for Universal Robot's Collaborate 2025 event in Novi, MI.
The day started with an insightful presentation from John Sbert, vice president, Americas at Universal Robots entitled, “Navigating the Future.” Sbert led the discussion with social and economic drivers for cobot automation globally. Here in the United States, he discussed thriving cobot markets in metals and machining, automotive and food and beverage. He also emphasized the importance of getting America to the top of the global market for industrial robot installations as investments will likely rise in line with domestic policies on manufacturing, reshoring and workforce initiatives.
Next up was an automation deep dive from Alex Shikany, executive vice president at A3. “The Future of Automation: Market Trends and Emerging Applications,” where forecasts for the AMR/AGV markets look promising through 2027. Additionally, the technology behind humanoid robots continues to advance at a rapid pace. Shikany cited a bullish outlook long-term as industry is still in the early days of robotic adoption, new industries are emerging, and labor shortage is making automation necessary. Technologies are converging and evolving to open doors to new applications.
Attendees witnessed cobot-powered solutions for applications such as welding, quality inspection, material handling, machine tending, assembly, painting, and palletizing presented by UR and its UR+ ecosystem partners including A.I Automation, Schmalz, Magswitch, PIAB, Zimmer, Schunk, Flexline Automation, Acumino AI, and SICK.
One highlight from UR is the AI Accelerator. Designed for commercial and research applications, the UR AI Accelerator provides developers with an extensible platform to build applications, accelerate research and reduce time to market for AI products.
The toolkit brings AI acceleration to Universal Robots' (UR) next-generation software platform PolyScope X and is powered by NVIDIA Isaac accelerated libraries and AI models, running on the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin system-on-module. Specifically, NVIDIA Isaac Manipulator gives developers the ability to bring accelerated performance and state-of-the-art AI technologies to their robotics solutions. The toolkit also includes the high-quality, newly developed Orbbec Gemini 335Lg 3D camera.
Universal Robots has also increased the payload capacity on its new-generation, high-payload cobots UR20 and UR30, enabling customers to lift more at no additional cost. The updates raise the total payload, including end-effector, to 25 and 35 kgs respectively when utilizing the cobot in top lift position. This is especially useful for palletizing applications and solutions. This update enables customers to increase productivity without increasing costs.
Collaborate 2025 was a great opportunity to see the latest collaborative robotic technologies and the various suppliers working with UR to unlock productivity, automation and efficiency in robotics and automation. I’m certainly looking forward to future iterations of the event.