40 Conversations at Automate 2026 reveal an industry entering its next chapter
There is a temptation after every major exhibition to judge its success by the number of product launches, technology announcements or headline-grabbing demonstrations. Walking the halls of Automate 2026, there was certainly no shortage of any of these. Artificial Intelligence dominated the marketing, autonomous robotics appeared on almost every aisle and manufacturers competed to demonstrate faster, smarter and increasingly capable automation solutions.
Yet exhibitions rarely reveal their true significance through press releases alone. The real story is often found in conversations. The discussions that take place away from presentation stages and product launches frequently provide a far more accurate reflection of where an industry believes it is heading.
With that in mind, MVPro decided to ask a simple question.
“What three words describe automation today?”
There was no multiple-choice answer, no carefully constructed survey and no predetermined direction. We simply handed the microphone to people from across the automation community and listened.
The responses came from across the automation ecosystem: camera manufacturers, robotics companies, software developers, AI specialists, component suppliers, system integrators and end users. Some answered immediately, others paused to think, but every response represented a genuine snapshot of how professionals currently view automation.
Individually, the answers appeared wonderfully diverse. Together, they revealed something rather unexpected. Despite coming from different companies, disciplines and backgrounds, there was remarkable agreement.
Watch the responses:
Looking beyond the buzzwords
At first glance, the resulting word cloud appears exactly as many would expect. Innovation dominates the centre, surrounded by familiar industry language such as speed, AI, intelligence, efficiency and vision.
It would be easy to conclude that this simply reflects the current fashion within industrial automation. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere. Innovation has become almost obligatory in modern marketing. Speed has always been associated with manufacturing.
But spending time with the responses tells a rather different story.
These words are not isolated concepts. They form relationships.
Innovation repeatedly appeared alongside reliability. AI was discussed in the same breath as productivity. Speed sat comfortably beside quality. Flexibility was accompanied by scalability. Even where people chose different language, they were often describing the same underlying objective.
This is perhaps the most significant observation from our conversations. Automation is no longer being defined by individual technologies. It is increasingly being judged by the outcomes those technologies deliver.
That represents an important shift for the machine vision industry.
Innovation has changed its meaning
Innovation appeared more frequently than any other word, yet it is no longer being used in the way it once was. Not long ago, innovation was largely synonymous with technical specification. More pixels. Faster frame rates. Greater processing power. Better optics.
Those developments remain important, but the industry has moved beyond measuring progress solely through performance improvements. Today’s innovation is increasingly about integration. It is about combining vision with robotics, combining AI with imaging, combining software with hardware and ultimately combining data with decision-making.
Eric Hershberger, principal application engineer at Cognex, described automation through the phrase “Machine Vision Renaissance.” The word renaissance suggests more than evolution. It implies reinvention.
Machine vision is no longer confined to quality inspection at the end of a production line. It is becoming an enabling technology that influences decision-making throughout manufacturing. Vision systems are now expected to inspect, guide robots, verify assembly, generate process intelligence and provide data that supports continuous improvement. In many respects, cameras have become one of the industry’s most important sensors. Their role is no longer simply to capture images.
It is to understand them.
Speed is becoming democratised
Speed appeared repeatedly throughout our conversations, but interestingly very few people were referring solely to cycle times or production throughput. Increasingly, speed is being measured in terms of implementation rather than operation.
Manufacturers want to deploy automation faster. Integrators want projects commissioned more quickly. SMEs want systems that can be justified without months of engineering effort.
That shift matters because it changes who can afford automation.
Historically, advanced machine vision has often been associated with large manufacturers capable of investing significant time and capital into bespoke systems. Today’s technology is reducing both barriers.
Faster deployment means lower engineering costs. Lower engineering costs reduce project risk. Lower project risk encourages first-time users to automate processes that may previously have remained manual.
Perhaps one of the most important consequences of advances in AI, embedded vision and increasingly capable software is that sophisticated automation is becoming accessible to a much wider range of manufacturers.
Artificial Intelligence has become part of the conversation, not the conversation
Predictably, Artificial Intelligence featured prominently throughout our interviews.
Yet perhaps the most interesting observation was the absence of excitement surrounding it. That may sound contradictory, but it reflects an industry becoming increasingly mature.
AI is no longer viewed as an experimental technology. Neither is it regarded as an optional extra. Instead, it has quietly become an expectation.
Several respondents referred specifically to Physical AI, edge intelligence and embedded imaging, while others simply chose the word “intelligence”. Regardless of terminology, the message remained consistent.
Speaking with Fanuc, I asked whether, given the company’s scale and the breadth of its customer base, end users were still cautious about adopting AI. The response was immediate. They are not concerned by the technology itself. If AI delivers greater efficiency, reduces cost and improves productivity, customers are prepared to embrace it. In other words, AI is no longer being evaluated as a novelty; it is being judged as another engineering tool capable of delivering measurable business value.
That shift in thinking is significant. Manufacturers are asking practical questions. Can it reduce false rejects? Can it simplify programming? Can it adapt to product variation? Can it improve traceability? Can it reduce operator intervention?
These are commercial questions rather than technological ones, and they demonstrate just how rapidly the industry has progressed. For machine vision companies, this creates both an opportunity and a responsibility. Customers are no longer buying AI because it sounds impressive. They expect intelligent systems because they deliver measurable value.
Reliability remains the industry’s currency
Perhaps the biggest surprise within our survey was not the prominence of innovation or AI. It was the persistence of words such as reliability, quality, repeatability, durability, robustness and precision.
These themes appeared throughout the responses. In many ways they acted as a counterbalance to the excitement surrounding emerging technologies.
It is an important reminder that manufacturing remains fundamentally different from many other technology sectors. Factories do not reward novelty. They reward consistency.
The most advanced inspection algorithm in the world has little value if it cannot operate reliably over thousands of production hours.
Likewise, the fastest vision system becomes irrelevant if customers cannot integrate it successfully or maintain it over time. This reinforces something that has always distinguished the machine vision industry. Progress has never been measured solely by technical capability. It has been measured by confidence.
Confidence that a system will perform tomorrow exactly as it did today. Confidence that measurements remain repeatable. Confidence that production continues uninterrupted.
In that respect, the responses from Automate suggest the industry’s priorities have not changed as much as headlines might suggest. Innovation matters. Reliability still wins.
The words that perhaps matter most
More interesting jobs for more people
Heiko Eisele, MV Tec
While analysing the responses, one unexpected group of words continued to stand out.
Community. Partnerships. Connections. Support. People.
These were not isolated responses. They appeared repeatedly across conversations with individuals working in completely different areas of automation. For an industry built upon engineering excellence, this is significant.
Automation has often been portrayed as a story of machines replacing people. The reality is considerably more nuanced. The respondents we spoke to see automation as something that enables people rather than removes them from the equation.
Heiko Eisele, MV Tec, said something beautiful that stayed with me throughout the show, he hoped automation would create “more interesting jobs for more people.”
That simple observation deserves attention. The future of manufacturing will undoubtedly involve greater autonomy. It will also require more skilled engineers, more systems thinking and closer collaboration between technology providers.
Machine vision sits at the centre of that collaboration. No single company now provides complete automation solutions in isolation. Success increasingly depends upon ecosystems. Camera manufacturers work alongside lighting specialists. Software developers collaborate with robotics companies. System integrators bring together technologies from multiple suppliers. End users expect seamless interoperability rather than individual components.
Perhaps the recurring emphasis on partnerships reflects an industry recognising that innovation has become a team sport.
An editor’s perspective
As I left Automate 2026 and reflected on these conversations, one thought remained with me. Machine vision no longer needs to justify its place within automation. That debate has been settled. Vision has become one of the enabling technologies upon which intelligent manufacturing depends. Without imaging there is no adaptive robotics. Without reliable visual data there is no meaningful AI.
Without machine vision there is no practical route towards truly autonomous manufacturing. The challenge facing our industry is therefore no longer proving the value of vision. It is ensuring that value remains accessible.
The companies that will lead the next decade are unlikely to be those with the longest specification sheets. They will be those that simplify complexity, shorten deployment times, build trust through reliability and work collaboratively with customers to solve real manufacturing challenges.
That, for me, is the overwhelming message from Automate 2026. Not that automation is becoming more intelligent, we already knew that. Not that AI is transforming manufacturing, that too is well established.
Rather, that the industry has reached a new level of maturity. The conversation has shifted from technology for technology’s sake towards technology that delivers measurable outcomes.
For MVPro, that is an encouraging place to be.
Our role has never been to follow the loudest marketing message or the latest fashionable acronym. It is to understand the technologies shaping machine vision, challenge assumptions where necessary and give our readers the insight they need to make informed decisions. The voices we heard in Chicago all described automation in different ways. Taken together, however, they told one remarkably consistent story. The future of automation will undoubtedly be faster, more intelligent and increasingly autonomous. But above all, it will be built on technologies that manufacturers can trust, partnerships that create genuine value and a machine vision industry that continues to transform images into understanding.
If that is where the industry is heading, then it is a future worth looking forward to.
