Sam Goldberg, chief operating officer at Econocorp Inc., is fairly certain he won’t ever hire a robot to build his machinery or fill a truly intuitive role. Even the most advanced robots will keep performing tasks that are, at best, monotonous and, at worst, the kind of dangerous or “dirty” work humans prefer to avoid. But when someone like Elon Musk floats the idea of mass-producing humanoids for consumers at roughly $30,000 by 2027, Goldberg can’t help but wonder how much more headroom there is for what robots can offer OEMs.

• Machine Design
• Automation

1. Engineering
2. Machine Design

Thinking Outside the Robotics Cell

Advanced technology is enabling OEMs to move robots beyond their traditional box-like environments. As new use cases emerge, piloting opportunities and operator training could differentiate the OEMs that see the most success and the strongest ROI.

Joe Darrah

May 11, 2026

With AI-based vision technology, ABB Robotics’ Robotic Parcel Inductor can handle unknown and randomly arranged items in unstructured environments.

ABB

Sam Goldberg, chief operating officer at Econocorp Inc., is fairly certain he won’t ever hire a robot to build his machinery or fill a truly intuitive role. Even the most advanced robots will keep performing tasks that are, at best, monotonous and, at worst, the kind of dangerous or “dirty” work humans prefer to avoid. But when someone like Elon Musk floats the idea of mass-producing humanoids for consumers at roughly $30,000 by 2027, Goldberg can’t help but wonder how much more headroom there is for what robots can offer OEMs.

“You’re seeing a lot of today’s robot manufacturers look at what really differentiates their robots,” Goldberg said. “You’re starting to see people use robots in different ways than they traditionally have.”

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