Let's get physical - how a new report struggles to make sense of the supposed new physical AI market

It’s a rule of thumb in today’s super-heated tech sector that analyst reports will rush in where robots fear to tread. Keen to capitalise on the current marketing and investment trend of re-defining robots as ‘physical AIs’ in the hope that AI hype and heat-seeking capital will cross the chasm into robotics, analysts are falling over themselves to make bold predictions for physical AI’s future.

The problems with analysts’ desire to capitalize on this trend are manifold. First, the last thing the robotics sector needs is hype-driven, impatient capital, spurred on by 'me-too' reports. Instead, what serious robotics needs is investors who are prepared to back the slow, iterative, safe, secure, and standards-driven development of systems that solve complex, real-world problems.

Re-heating robotics in the form of performative brand extensions simply attracts performative investors who will be on the phone by year end, demanding their promised billions ...