The honeymoon for cobots might be over

In partnership with

14% of the workforce.
That’s how many people said goodbye to Teradyne last week, the group that owns giants like UR and MiR.

It’s already the second wave of layoffs in just nine months, and like many of you, I’m wondering if the cobot market is starting to shake, if time has revealed it to be a giant with feet of clay.

When the era of collaborative automation began, cobots were stormed like a newly opened kebab shop (for context, in Poland we joke that kebab is our national dish 😉).
Companies bought them as a symbol of innovation, only to leave them gathering dust in warehouses and the darkest corners of factories.

They were mesmerized by promises of implementations as easy as making a sandwich.
Reality, however, quickly stripped that illusion of its sweetness and showed that cobots are a fantastic technology, but to use them well, you still have to know what you’re doing.

The Simplest Way to Create and Launch AI Agents and Apps

You know that AI can help you automate your work, but you just don't know how to get started.

With Lindy, you can build AI agents and apps in minutes simply by describing what you want in plain English.

→ "Create a booking platform for my business."
→ "Automate my sales outreach."
→ "Create a weekly summary about each employee's performance and send it as an email."

From inbound lead qualification to AI-powered customer support and full-blown apps, Lindy has hundreds of agents that are ready to work for you 24/7/365.

Stop doing repetitive tasks manually. Let Lindy automate workflows, save time, and grow your business

Get $20 Worth of Free Credits

Years of getting used to the technology finally paid off.
Cobots have proven their worth. Today the market is growing at an incredible pace, and there’s no sign of it slowing down.
Beyond factories, where engineers have finally learned how to work with them, cobots are stepping into everyday life. They make pizza, pour drinks, and even shine on stage with Beyoncé.

So what’s happening with UR?
Probably the same thing that happens to every giant who ruled the market for years and now has to face a reality where the competition has grown up.
The biggest industrial robot manufacturers have fully entered the cobot world, and now Chinese companies are knocking on the door, not planning to sit quietly and wait for crumbs to fall from the cake.

UR has been growing like crazy for years. But every growth comes at a price.

Now it’s time for a sober look.
Not at the hype, not at the promises, but at the real needs of factories.
Cobots aren’t going anywhere, on the contrary, they’ll keep growing, but no longer as shiny gadgets from brochures, rather as tools of the trade.
Maybe this is the moment when the collaboration market finally grows up.
The honeymoon is over. It’s time for a real marriage with industry.

Cheers, Jacek