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Boston Dynamics CEO: we’re in a scaling evolution
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter believes the robotics industry is evolving out of that niche stage and into scale. Playter made the comments while on a panel at CES 2026 with some other high-profile folks, including Nakul Duggal with Qualcomm, Google DeepMind senior director Carolina Parada, and General Motors’ director of robotics strategy Mikell Taylor.
“You know, I think for the 30 years I’ve been doing robotics, it’s been a niche, and it’s been dominated by YouTube videos and prototypes. And I think the interesting evolution that is happening now is scale,” Playter said on stage. “Adoption is actually starting to happen, right?”
Playter noted that Boston Dynamics, which is majority owned by Hyundai, has more 2,000 robotics Spot dogs with customers in factory settings.
“We have partner companies, OEMs, large-scale industry providers, even component providers who want to get into the robotics business, whether it’s building batteries or actuators or sensors, and ultimately, that’s what’s going to be required to sort of scale this industry,” he said.
