Factory Robots See Slight Drop in Growth, but Still Have Momentum

At Automate 2025, preliminary numbers from the International Federation of Robotics indicate that automation in automotive manufacturing is still dominating growth in United States as the nation faces a shortage of 3 million workers within five years.

June 2, 2025

Chris Clonts

The executive panel at Automate 2025 in Detroit that talked about the trends and technologies driving the industry, from left: Robert Huschka, VP of education strategies for the Association for Advancing Automation; Marina Bill, Global head of marketing and sales for ABB; Torsten Kroeger, chief scientific officer at Intrinsic; Julia Asrid Riemenschneider, CEO of United Robotics and Rethink Robotics; and Matthew Wicks, VP and GM of the robotic division of Zebra Technologies. (Chris Clonts)

Despite a slight drop in the installations of factory robots in 2024, the push to automate automotive and other manufacturing was carrying momentum into fiscal 2025 and could benefit from U.S. federal priorities, said Jane Heffner, vice president of the International Federation of Robotics, at an industry expo in Detroit.

Julia Heffner, VP of the International Federation of Robotics, delivers preliminary industry growth numbers at Automate 2025 in Detroit. (Chris Clonts)

Heffner, also the VP of sales for Teradyne Robotics, said the outlook for 2025 is strong, based on orders in Q4 of 2024. “We’re seeing a double-digit increase in order intake from Q4 to Q1 of 2025,” she said. She acknowledged the global economic uncertainty but said the “interest in moving forward is still there.” She delivered her remarks at Automate 2025, the Association for Advancing Automation’s annual expo, held this year in downtown Detroit.

Heffner said that the Trump administration’s target of reshoring manufacturing would force a reckoning with the nation’s chronic labor shortage. “It gives us all a huge opportunity,” she said, “to help them with their automation journey.”

The International Federation of Robotics is a nonprofit that represents more than 3,000 robot manufacturers, robotics associations, universities and start-ups worldwide. The Association for Advancing Automation is the nation’s largest robotics trade group.

The 2024 numbers on installations of individual robots, which Heffner stressed were preliminary, showed:

Global installations were down 3%, to 523,000 from 541,000. But momentum remains strong, as installations have been in the mid-500,000s since 2021. Heffner said the number is good. “We’re still penetrating industries in very difficult situations around the world,” she said.
In the United States specifically, robotic installations were down 9% to 34,000 from 38,000. But again, the previous three years showed roughly similar installation numbers.
Automotive and electrical/electronics manufacturing were by far the leading adopting industries globally, with 126,000 and 128,000 installations, respectively. In the United States, the auto industry dominates with 13,747 installations, nearly four times the number of the next nearest industry, metal and machinery.

Heffner said the top five trends identified by the IFR heading into 2025 are:

Physical, analytic and generative AI
Single-purpose humanoid robots: She said safety is a challenge, as is building robots to work collaboratively with humans. “We see early application areas as being security, logistics and material handling,” she said, adding that general multipurpose humanoids are in the distant future.
Sustainability and energy consumption, such as reducing material waste, lowering the cost of producing green energy tech, and developing more energy-efficient robots.
New fields of business
Robots addressing the labor shortage. The shortage of humans to fill shop-floor jobs will continue. She said the federation sees the continued rise of cobots, or robots built to work alongside humans with no safety barrier, and mobile manipulators, which are robotic arms or other machinery on a mobile platform.

The discussion panel of robotics executives that followed Heffner's report talked about those industry trends, political uncertainty and the pace of technological change.

Marina Bill, ABB’s global head of marketing and sales, said it was encouraging to see the growth in industries that are underdeveloped from an automation perspective. “We all expected that the food and beverage market would take off after Covid would start to take off, and it hadn’t happened yet, but this year we’re starting to see some positive numbers,” she said. The IFR’s Heffner said the global food industry installed 18,000 units in 2024, up 20% over 2023.

In the industry's view of tariffs, the panel expressed the same desire shared by the automotive industry since the uncertainty began: the need for clarity. “We all want that crystal ball,” said Matthew Wicks, VP and GM of Zebra Robotics Automation.

As the conversation turned to AI, Torsten Kroeger, chief scientific officer of software and AI robotics company Intrinsic, said the pace of development has even suppliers scrambling to keep up, let alone clients. “We provide a lot of AI-based solutions on the software side, and if we were to write a paper today, it will be outdated six months from now, because the technology is moving so fast. The way it’s getting integrated into robotic automation is a pace we’ve not seen ever before.”

One member of the panel, Julia Astrid Riemenschneider, said she would look forward to a wave of automation development in the United States. “I’m really excited to see the results of geopolitics,” the CEO of United Robotics Group and Rethink Robotics said. “Will European companies really bring production here? I’m keeping my fingers crossed to see a ramp-up of manufacturing in the U.S.”

Robert Huschka, A3’s vice president of education strategies, moderated the discussion.