KUKA CEO on physical AI: how 600,000 deployed robots learn new tricks
lukas_m_ziegler · x · 2026-10-29
KUKA CEO Christoph Schell explains how the company behind one of the first industrial robots (Famulus, 1973) and nearly 600,000 robots in factories worldwide is betting on physical AI — combining deterministic automation with robots that understand context and act on intent, so even older machines can learn new tasks.
Key points:
- Where physical AI training data actually comes from
- Why KUKA is growing faster than the market in China
- Robotics-as-a-service as a business model
- Humanoids are just one form factor among many mobile robots, not their own category
- His framing: "We're not disrupting the old industry. We are evolving it."
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