Making Robots Work Better, Together at Automate 2026

The robotics industry has a scaling problem, and it has little to do with the number of robots available. Walk almost any factory or distribution center floor today and you'll find autonomous machines from a growing list of vendors, each with its own form factor, its own protocols, and its own fleet manager. Individually, they work. Together, they too often don't. Those islands of automation create coordination bottlenecks that quietly erode the return every automation investment was supposed to deliver.

This week in Chicago, we're showing what happens when those islands finally connect. At Automate 2026 (June 22-25), in collaboration with the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), InOrbit is unveiling a landmark AMR interoperability showcase: a live demonstration that brings together eight robotics companies from around the world, all orchestrated through a single platform. With more than 50,000 attendees expected, it's the biggest stage yet for the idea at the heart of everything we do: making robots work better, together.

Eight Brands, One Orchestration Layer

The companies sharing the floor with us represent a genuine cross-section of the global automation industry, spanning humanoid and cognitive robotics, industrial automation, material handling, collaborative robots, and autonomous cleaning. Joining InOrbit are Ati Robotics, Kärcher, Neura Robotics, Omron, Peer Robotics, Quasi Robotics, and Unitree.

All eight vendors' robots are coordinated in real time by one system: InOrbit Space Intelligence™, the AI-powered orchestration layer for the physical world. Rather than ripping out and replacing each vendor's native fleet manager, Space Intelligence sits above them, connecting to enterprise systems, integrating each vendor's existing software, dispatching robots on complex missions, and coordinating their movements on a shared floor.

"Enterprises are facing the automation paradox: as they deploy robots at scale, complexity increases, preventing them from achieving agility," says Florian Pestoni, CEO of InOrbit.AI. "Today, we are demonstrating the future of the sentient enterprise in action, bridging the gap between business intent and physical execution with partners from around the world."

Why This Matters to You

If you operate robots today, or plan to soon, here's what federated orchestration changes:

• No more stranded automation. Space Intelligence delivers unified command and control across multi-vendor robot fleets and IoT infrastructure, so adding a new robot brand doesn't mean adding a new silo.
• Business intent, translated into robot action. The InOrbit Business Execution System™ (BES) turns orders from your WMS, ERP, and MES into optimized robotic missions, connecting the top floor to the shop floor.
• One shared understanding of space. Real-time spatial awareness, traffic management, and task deconfliction keep heterogeneous fleets moving in harmony instead of in each other's way.

The result is the thing automation always promised but rarely delivered at scale: more robots, less complexity.

A Live Reference for an Emerging Standard

This showcase doubles as a working reference for ISO/DIS 21423, the upcoming standard that defines a common communication framework so robots, fleet managers, and enterprise systems from different vendors can interoperate. Unlike earlier standards built around centralized control, ISO 21423 embraces the federated orchestration architecture InOrbit pioneered, where multiple fleet managers and robots can coexist and coordinate as equals. Our CEO contributed directly to the ISO working group behind it, and the standard is now in its ballot period, expected to publish later this year.

As Jeff Burnstein, President of A3, has noted, the next phase of automation growth will be driven by interoperability and seamless coordination between diverse robotic platforms. Automate 2026 marks the first time a live demonstration of federated orchestration on this scale has been shown.

Agentic AI Meets Physical AI

Coordinating this much complexity demands real intelligence. At the booth, we're showcasing the latest evolution of InOrbit RobOps Copilot™, an Agentic AI overlay that lets operations teams manage robots end-to-end through natural language, including voice commands. Instead of juggling a separate dashboard for every vendor, operators simply state their intent: define robot behavior, pull real-time data, analyze performance, trigger missions, and generate reports.

"The RobOps Copilot changes the conversation from 'how do I operate these robots' to 'what do I need the operation to achieve,'" says Ramiro Diaz Trepat, CTO of InOrbit.AI. "It's intent over specification, bringing the power of enterprise robot orchestration to every member of the operations team, regardless of their technical background."

Underpinning it all is a deep technology ecosystem. As a member of the NVIDIA Inception program, InOrbit leverages NVIDIA technology across the stack, from NVIDIA Thor for inference at the edge to NVIDIA Metropolis for Visual AI agents, and integrates certified functional safety solutions such as InnoTech SafeGuard and NVIDIA Halos. As Physical AI reaches more applications and form factors, safety has to scale right alongside it.

Come See It Live

The InOrbit Connect ecosystem already spans 30+ robot brands and keeps growing. Automate 2026 is where you can see what that connectivity makes possible: eight vendors, one orchestrated operation, working as one.

Heading to Chicago for Automate 2026? Stop by to see orchestration in action