Building robots that survive the warehouse

The Robot Report Podcast · 7 Aug 2026 · 51m

AI in practice: 3 real uses of AI described

What this episode covers

Josh Cloer, General Manager for North America at No Magic, explains how the company applies 'physical AI' and vision-language-action (VLA) models to warehouse each-picking and recovery workflows. He emphasizes that No Magic’s competitive advantage lies in using real-world production data rather than simulation to handle edge cases, such as flexible shoebox handling. The discussion covers the shift from batch to continuous 'always-on' operations, the integration of AI layers onto existing hardware like ASRS, and strategies for de-risking automation adoption for supply chain leaders.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

Engineering & simulationNo Magic VLA (Vision Language Action models)0 churn within deployed systems

No Magic uses VLA models as a secondary recovery workflow to allow robots to autonomously solve packing errors in real-time by interpreting visual input and generating action plans, reducing the need for human intervention.

“we have, uh, censoring technology that's, you know, with AI that's constantly looking for these types of scenarios and, you know, flagging the system to switch to VLA mode, essentially. And then the robot can drive down and solve with that input…”

Speaker 3 · Hear it at 27:56

Engineering & simulationNo Magic AI models trained on production dataover a year in production

No Magic trains its physical AI models using real-world production data from deployed systems rather than just simulation, allowing the robots to generalize learnings and handle edge cases like specific shoebox orientations without retraining.

“we've built up a more general model of, of what uh, different types of products are and classifications of products based off of what we've seen in the real world with our uh, production data. We start there. So we can immediately begin picking when we come on site.”

Speaker 3 · Hear it at 30:21

Quality & testNo Magic Spot (vision sensor)

No Magic deploys its Spot vision sensor between pick and pack lines to perform order item counting and verification, identifying potential errors before shipping to reduce error rates.

“spot is just a vision sensor that you can put in between your pick and your pack lines to be able to do order item counting, order verification. Um, It's something that, uh, allows you to have a lot more data about what's going on in your, in your building…”

Speaker 3 · Hear it at 37:34

Mentioned

Companies
No Magic, Path Robotics, Gray Matter Robotics, Google DeepMind, HII, Mobile Industrial Robots, Mujin, Vanderlande, Zalando
Products
Gemini Robotics, Spot

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