robotics AM market analysis — 2026-07-09

Robotics enters the AM session with demand signals converging across warehouse automation and last-mile delivery. Persistent labour shortages and rising logistics costs continue to push supply chain operators toward automation, a dynamic that benefits companies positioned in warehouse robotics. The IFR’s World Robotics 2025 report puts professional service robot sales at close to two hundred thousand units in 2024, representing roughly nine percent growth year-over-year, validating the market expansion thesis with hard deployment data.

At the last-mile layer, Serve Robotics is moving from pilot to commercial rollout, expanding its autonomous sidewalk delivery service into the Washington D.C. area with further US market launches signalled throughout 2026. Each new city launch tests whether the operational density required for viable unit economics can actually be achieved at scale.

The longer-horizon read comes from ARC Advisory Group, which connects AI-driven factory construction to a potential compounding wave of downstream automation demand across manufacturers, suppliers, and technology providers. That thesis remains conditional on the industrial buildout materialising at the pace currently projected, but it gives the sector a credible multi-year demand driver beyond current logistics applications.