The State of the Automation Industry: Leadership Roundtable

The automation industry is evolving rapidly, driven by advancements in robotics, AI, machine vision, and industrial connectivity. In this executive roundtable, industry leaders will share their perspectives on the current state of automation, the biggest opportunities and challenges facing businesses today, and where the industry is headed next. 

Panelists will discuss key market trends, supply chain dynamics, workforce implications, and the impact of emerging technologies. Whether you’re an end user, system integrator, or technicology provider, this session will offer high-level strategic insights to help you navigate the future of automation.

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Moderator:

Robert Huschka, Vice President of Education Strategies, Association for Advancing Automation (A3)

Panelists: 

Wendy Tan White, Chief Executive Officer, Intrinsic

Andre Marino, SVP, Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric

Mike Cicco, President and CEO, FANUC America

Matt Moschner, President & CEO, Cognex

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The AI For Industry Challenge: Solving the High-Value Bottleneck in Electronics Assembly

While automation has matured in electronics manufacturing, it remains constrained by deterministic programming that fails the moment it encounters the high variability of modern assembly and end-to-end testing. These systems don’t adapt or learn, remaining fixed in value. To enable adaptive production, we need a global shift toward an industrial AI architecture that solves the high-value bottleneck that is dexterous cable management and insertion.

In this talk, Senior staff roboticist Dr Jimmy Baraglia explores how the Intrinsic AI for Industry Challenge is accelerating this transition and how this challenge emulates the future of intelligent solution design. Dr. Baraglia, will share his insights into running the global robotics Challenge. Providing salient information about the tips and approaches to consider when setting up a challenge like this, and what pitfalls to be aware of. He’ll discuss unlocking developer talent, using open source tools and Intrinsic's platform to solve valuable, currently unsolved problems, and touch on how to set up an impactful evaluation committee.

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Speakers:

Dr Jimmy Baraglia, Senior Staff Roboticist, Intrinsic

Unlocking Physical AI in production: Accelerate robotics innovation with Intrinsic Flowstate‍

Paul Villers, Director of Product at Intrinsic, and Margot Kimura, Sr. Product Manager at Intrinsic, will demonstrate how Intrinsic Flowstate provides an intuitive environment for businesses and developers to deploy intelligent robotic solutions to their factory floor. Featuring an easy-to-use digital twin with powerful simulation capabilities, Flowstate will help manufacturers shift from hardcoded programming to intelligent solutions, unlocking new innovation in the robotics ecosystem.

In addition to Flowstate, they will offer insights and perspectives on the future of robotic system development, including newer AI and agentic methodologies.

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Speakers:

Paul Villers, Product Director, Intrinsic

Margot Kimura, Senior Product Manager, Intrinsic

AI-powered automation for all-sized machine shops

As manufacturing shifts toward high-mix production, traditional, hardcoded robotic software lacks the flexibility shops need today. How can machine shops integrate AI to add immediate value to these operations? Join Vivek Srivatsa, BD Manager at Intrinsic, and Nick Tonti, National Sales Manager at Trinity Robotics & Automation, for a candid chat on how building with Intrinsic Intelligence unlocks flexible automation for machine shops. Together, they will discuss their collaborative journey and first-hand learnings, offering a roadmap for machine shops and their small and medium-sized business customers to benefit from AI-enabled solutions.

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Speakers:

Vivek Srivatsa, Sales Account Executive, Intrinsic

Nick Tonti, National Sales Manager, Trinity Robotics Automation

The AI for industry challenge: Solving the high-value bottleneck in electronics assembly

Automation has matured in electronics manufacturing, yet it remains trapped by hardcoded programming. The moment these systems encounter variability, they fail, unable to adapt, learn, or evolve.

Enter a new era of robotics. Driven by GenAI, LLMs, and foundation models, the AI for Industry Challenge unites global developers with Intrinsic’s cutting-edge AI tools. The mission? To solve one of manufacturing’s most complex, high-value bottlenecks: routing and handling wires and connectors for electronics assembly.

Join Senior Staff Roboticist Jimmy Baraglia to discover how the world's best software and AI developers are building next-generation robotics solutions and redefining the manufacturing ecosystem.

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Speaker: 

Dr Jimmy Baraglia, Senior Staff Roboticist, Intrinsic

From rigid repetition to adaptive robotics: The AI architecture for intelligent factories

The manufacturing sector has faced a hardware-rich but intelligence-poor reality for decades. While physical automation has matured, it remains constrained by deterministic, hard-coded programming and processes that break the moment they encounter variability. These systems don’t adapt or learn, so are fixed in value. To enable truly adaptive, intelligent production and value - we need the right industrial AI architecture supporting it.

In this keynote, Wendy Tan White will outline the architecture required for the AI-infused "intelligent factory." For the first time, foundation models are making intelligent robotics systems computationally efficient and economical for industrial grade operations. We will explore how integrating faster, cheaper specialized foundation models for core capabilities like machine vision can quickly shift the economics and value potential of robotic systems.

The discussion will dissect the technical reality of applying AI to physical tasks - specifically in high-variability environments common everywhere from machine shops and contract manufacturers to the largest OEMs in the world. We will examine how AI-integrated processes and capabilities can enable awareness at the actuation level - making more sophisticated, valuable solutions practical and possible.

Importantly, this session will demonstrate how democratizing access to these intelligent, reusable and combinable capabilities is an economic imperative. By making the best AI simultaneously accessible and deployable through intuitive modern developer environments and digital twins - we can unlock the talent and value of software engineers and developers in new ways. This shift shows that intelligent, scalable automation is no longer a research project or prediction - it’s a practicality and emerging standard that needs investment today.

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Speakers:

Wendy Tan White, Chief Executive Officer, Intrinsic

Enabling the Data Center Boom: Intelligent Automation

The rapid growth of data centers is reshaping demand for power, infrastructure, and industrial capacity. This session explores how intelligent automation is helping scale deployment while addressing constraints in energy, labor, and supply chains.

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Moderator:

Ani Kelkar, Partner and Global Leader, Robotics & Automation, McKinsey & Company

Panelists: 

Stefan Nusser, Chief Product Officer, Intrinsic

John Bubnikovich, President, IS, ABB Robotics

Ujjwal Kumar, President, DI Automation Americas, Siemens Industry, Inc.

Diversity and Emerging Leaders in Automation

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Moderator:

Deb Kling, VP Marketing, Association of Advancing Automation (A3)

Speakers: 

Henrike Neulen, Senior Account Manager, Intrinsic

Carlos Alfaro Flores, Mechatronics Application Engineer, Mechatronics Application Engineer

Sara Burakoff, Area Sales Manager, Teradyne Robotics

Rebekah Oestreich, Regional Channel Manager, Americas Teradyne Robotics

Robotics reimagined with Physical AI: Scaling automation with Intrinsic Intelligence

The transition to intelligent robotics is no longer a futuristic concept - it is happening right now on the factory floor. The Intrinsic team will discuss real-world deployments, showcasing how collaboration with global partners is solving complex automation challenges ranging from high-mix machine tending to intelligent electronics assembly. For businesses looking to modernize their machine shops, the team will provide a pragmatic roadmap for integration, demonstrating how building with Intrinsic Intelligence unlocks advanced AI capabilities to make automation flexible, scalable, and accessible.

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Speaker:

Simon Lapeyry, Head of Business Development, Intrinsic

Henrike Neulen, Senior Account Manager, Intrinsic

Christoph Golombek, Senior Account Manager, Intrinsic