The Robot Report Podcast · 2 Jun 2026 · 54m
Steve Crowe, Brianna, Eugene, and Mike recap the 2026 Robotics Summit in Boston, highlighting key themes like AI integration and the 'worthiness' of robots. They discuss Brian Gerkey’s insights on Open Robotics and the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA), as well as Michael Taylor’s framework for deploying reliable industrial robots at companies like Amazon and GM. The episode concludes with a powerful recap of Noland Arbaugh’s keynote on his journey as the first Neuralink patient and the potential of brain-computer interfaces.
Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.
Engineering & simulationAI coding assistant tools
Open Robotics adopted a policy to allow AI coding assistants in their open-source projects to improve developer productivity and experience.
“these tools are very promising, and we think that they have the potential to substantially improve the experience of the developers, and the productivity of the developers…”
Brian Gerkey · Hear it at 22:57
Engineering & simulationAI policies
The AI for Industry Challenge, organized by Intrinsic and Open Robotics, focuses on solving electronics assembly problems using AI policies.
“he also introduced the AI for industry challenge. Which is organized by intrinsic plus open robotics, and it's focusing on solving electronics assembling problem using AI policies.”
Speaker 4 · Hear it at 24:44
Engineering & simulationReal Sense physical AI
Chris Matthew from Real Sense demonstrated real-time robot programming using physical AI and prompts without writing code in front of an audience.
“He actually hacked a robot using physical AI using AI. He didn't code anything on it real time in front of a packed audience. It was incredible.”
Mike O'Kane · Hear it at 14:04
large enterprises
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Chris Luecke and Jake Hall report from Automatica 2025 in Munich, interviewing leaders from Intrinsic, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Innok Robotics, KUKA, and VDMA. They discuss how AI foundation models are making robotics accessible to non-experts, the collaborative innovation ecosystem in Bavaria, and the challenges European startups face in scaling compared to the US. The episode highlights specific technologies like Intrinsic's perception models, Innok's outdoor AMR platform, and the industry's push for interoperability standards.
Hosts Alvaro and Jen celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast with a retrospective on their personal and professional lives. Jen discusses her transition to voiceover work, her new role in research, and her ethical concerns regarding robotics, while Alvaro highlights the podcast's most popular episodes and the success of the Asahi Linux project. They also promote the book Open Circuits by Wendell and Eric, sharing a discount code for listeners.
Hosts Matt Perrott and Scott Wilcox discuss recent developments in AI, robotics, and hardware, including Google's launch of the Opal no-code platform and Lovable's rapid growth to $100M ARR. They analyze Amazon's acquisition of AI wearable company Bay, the emergence of portable data centers by Amend, and the deflationary pricing of robotics from Unitree and DJI. The episode concludes with an analysis of Jensen Huang's leadership philosophy at NVIDIA and the necessity for workers to adopt AI tools to avoid being replaced.
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