3 Takeaways From Our Davos Panel on the Future of Robotics

In a world of AI chatbots and agents, we’re not talking enough about physical AI.

At a Thursday morning Davos panel moderated by Business Insider’s Jamie Heller, robotics experts dived into ways bots are going to change the world — and their key limitations.

Here are three takeaways from the World Economic Forum panel, which featured robotics and automation experts and a trade minister:

1. Digital twins have moved from hype to real return

One phrase dominated the conversation: digital twins.

Executives from Siemens, Agility Robotics, and Automation Anywhere agreed that what once sounded like a distant possibility is now delivering real productivity gains for companies.

A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical object, person, or process. They can help organizations simulate real situations and their outcomes, allowing them to make better decisions.

“Digital twins have been around, but the technology has exponentially improved, and the computing power has exponentially improved,” said Automation Anywhere CEO Mihir Shukla.

He added, “Let’s say digital twins tell you that there is going to be a problem in manufacturing. You can proactively act on it. It has implications on your inventory. It has implications on your shipping planning.”

Siemens’ CEO Roland Busch said that the productivity boost is showing up in numbers.

He said that the company’s output is 20% higher and that energy costs are 20% lower.

“You have much, much faster and ramping up, you don’t make mistakes,” if you use a digital twin, he said.

2. Labor shortages are driving humanoid robots

Robots can do work that humans are unable to — or don’t want to — do, said Peggy Johnson, the CEO of Agility Robotics.

“It’s very hard to hire for these manual jobs,” she said. “They’re dull and dirty, and they’re dangerous at times because you’re lifting over and over again, very repetitive. It’s kind of mind-numbing work.”

Faster progress in robotics means a better quality of life for the humans who are doing such jobs.

“The injuries are also another thing,” she said about jobs that require a lot of heavy lifting. “We have an aging workforce. A lot of young kids don’t want to go into environments like this. So the older employees are also getting hurt more.”

Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the Minister of Foreign Trade for the United Arab Emirates, echoed that robotics was the future of “non-skilled” labor.

“It’s too difficult to attract new young people to start working on the construction,” he said. “Robotics is the main solution.”

But building robots that are safe to use in human environments is also key, Johnson said.

3. You can’t copy and paste R&D

Al Zeyoudi added that financing AI is only the first step toward AI integration.

“Sometimes you have the money, but you haven’t diagnosed the right solution to the problem that you’re having,” he said.

He said that the UAE’s push for AI includes government appointments, policy development, and research and development, which was the “main game changer.”

“Many, many stakeholders are avoiding that because they say someone else will do it,” he said, referring to R&D. “I’ll just copy and paste it.”

“But when it comes to AI, it’s too late,” Al Zeyoudi added. “You have to start working on R&D because you ensure to customize things to your own ecosystem, your own environments, your own conditions.”