Automated with Brian Heater

“Nobody wants a robot.” That’s how Péter Fankhauser, CEO of ANYbotics, reframes industrial automation. Customers are not buying quadrupeds for spectacle. They are investing in solutions that solve real operational problems. In this episode of Automated, Brian Heater speaks with the ETH Zurich spinout founder about turning cutting-edge robotics research into a commercially deployed inspection platform used in offshore wind, oil and gas, and other hazardous environments.They discuss why ANYbotics is not chasing humanoid hype, how the company built traction through real-world deployments, what industrial facilities actually look like behind the scenes, and how reinforcement learning reshaped their control systems. The conversation also covers transparency in robotics marketing, the role of teleoperation in autonomy, the shift from collecting data to delivering insights, and the ethical line the company drew around weaponization. It is a grounded look at where industrial AI is delivering value today and what it takes to scale autonomous robots in the real world.Sponsored by SANYO DENKI America: High-performance SANMOTION C S300 delivers precise, reliable multi-axis control. Learn more at sanyodenki.com/america.We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/  

Talk about humanoid robots is everywhere, but how useful are they in industrial settings?In this live episode of Automated, Brian Heater talks with Mikell Taylor, former Amazon Robotics leader and current head of General Motors’ Autonomous Robotics Center. Recorded in front of an audience at A3’s Business Forum, the conversation dives into safety, collaboration, automation at scale, and why the best robots don’t necessarily look like us.From Amazon’s Proteus AMR to GM’s next generation of manufacturing automation, this episode cuts through the hype and focuses on what actually works in the real world.We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/  

Brian Gerkey believes deeply in the importance of open-sourcing robotics technology. His career, with time spent at Willow Garage, Open Robotics, and now as CTO at Intrinsic, has been guided by this philosophy.In this episode of Automated, Gerkey explains why “simple” tasks like picking and placing remain some of the toughest problems to solve, especially in high-variability environments. We explore Intrinsic’s software-first approach to making automation economically viable, the idea of artificial functional intelligence (AFI), and how technology only succeeds when workers trust and understand how to use it. Bryan reflects on the tight-knit spirit of the industry, and why community, relationships, and impact, not just perfect tech, drive it forward and keep him dedicated to robotics after all of these years.We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/ 

After three decades in consumer robotics, Colin Angle is still asking the hardest questions about trust, value, and what robots are actually for.Colin Angle, co-founder and former CEO of iRobot, joins Automated for a candid conversation about the rise of consumer robotics, the collapse of the Amazon acquisition, and what comes next for physical AI.He explains why Roomba was never a “science project,” how regulatory delays reshaped the company’s future, and why the next generation of robots must focus on trust, value, and real human interaction, not just humanoid hype.The conversation also looks forward. Colin, now the CEO of Familiar Machines & Magic, shares how his thinking has evolved after three decades in consumer robotics, why trust and value creation remain the hardest problems to solve, and what excites him about the next era of physical AI, from emotionally intelligent machines to a smarter, more human-centered home.Connect with Colin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinangle/ Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at podcast@automate.org. You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automate.org/podcast. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.You can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/ Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundup

The current interest in robotics follows a pattern we’ve seen before. Eric Danziger has spent years working through those cycles and offers perspective on how things are actually playing out.Invisible AI CEO Eric Danziger joins Automated to cut through the hype around humanoids, self-driving cars, and AI demos. Drawing from his time in the U.S. Army, Carnegie Mellon’s robotics program, and Silicon Valley startups, Danziger explains why physical AI moves more slowly than software, and why vision, infrastructure, and manufacturing realities matter more than flashy demos. A grounded conversation about what’s possible now, what isn’t, and what it will really take to automate the physical world.We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/  

Robotics has a habit of compressing timelines in theory and stretching them out in practice. Few people are better positioned to talk about that gap than Vincent Vanhoucke, whose work spans the early days of deep learning at Google and the ongoing challenge of scaling autonomous systems at Waymo.Vincent Vanhoucke, distinguished engineer at Waymo and former leader at Google Robotics and Google Brain, joins Automated for a wide-ranging conversation on embodied AI, robotics, and autonomous driving.From the early days of deep learning to today’s foundation models, Vincent breaks down why scaling is harder than innovation, how robotics and AI finally converged, and what humanoids can learn from the long road to self-driving cars.Listen to Vincent’s podcast: AI in Motion https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCkt0hth826G9AtnOrQsPbKKD5JmdaMXb&si=Nes4oraGJT4d4biaWe’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/  

True Ventures was an early investor in key robotics startups like Diligent and Bear Flag, thanks, in part, to Rohit Sharma’s thoughtful eye. The venture partner discusses how the firm determines early stage successes and charts his family’s journey from India farm to Palo Alto boardroom. From ag robotics and humanoids to long investment timelines, founder empathy, and why optimism matters in venture, this conversation goes deep on how transformative technologies actually make it into the world. We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/  

‘‘Twas the night before Automated and all through TRI, not a robot was stirring, just Erin McColl and I. We watched several YouTube videos with great glee, for the latest in AI and autonomy.” Welcome to this end-of-year special where host Brian Heater and Toyota Research Institute’s Erin McColl break down the most compelling robot videos of 2025. What’s real, what’s hype, and what actually moved automation technologies forward. From diffusion policies and dexterity challenges to home robots, humanoids, and honest failure cases, this episode explores the trends shaping robotics heading into 2026, plus the reveal of the 2025 Readers’ Poll winner.See the full list of 10 videos under consideration on YouTube. We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. Unlock full access to Automated and explore everything automation. Subscribe today and leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.Subscribe to the Automated Newsletter: https://www.automate.org/automation/newsletter-automation-roundupYou can also find us on:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/automated-podcast-by-a3/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/automatedpod/