A guide to Day 1 of the 2026 Robotics Summit & Expo

2026 Robotics Summit & Expo">

The Robotics Summit & Expo is here! The show is bringing together over 5,000 developers focused on building robots for aerospace and defense, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, and other markets.

We’ll be kicking things off at 9:00 a.m. ET at the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center in Boston with two back-to-back keynotes in Room 253 ABC. The first is called “ Building the Next Era of Robot Autonomy .”

That panel will feature insights from Aaron Parness, the director of applied science at Amazon Robotics ; Anders Beck, vice president of AI robotics products at Universal Robots ; Hamid Montazeri, the senior vice president of software and AI at Locus Robotics ; and John Wall, the president of QNX .

The second panel, “ The State of Humanoids ,” will start at 10:00 a.m. It will include Al Makke, the head of humanoid robotics in North America for Schaeffler ; Mike Nielsen, the chief marketing officer at RealSense ; Aaron Prather, the director of robotics and automation systems programs at ASTM International ; Alberto Rodriguez, the director of robot behavior for Atlas at Boston Dynamics ; and Pras Velagapudi, the chief technology officer at Agility .

Also at 10:00 a.m., the Robotics Summit & Expo show floor will also open.

There, you can find the Engineering Theater, where talks start at 10:15 a.m., and the RBR50 Showcase. MassRobotics will be hosting its Startup Alley, Form & Function Challenge, and Physical AI Accelerator. Attendees can even play pickleball with Tennibot .

Breakout sessions will start at 11:30 a.m. upstairs from the show floor. Today’s summit breakout talk schedule is:

A Spot robot from Boston Dynamics at the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo.

The Engineering Theater will be on the show floor at the Robotics Summit & Expo. Credit: Jeff Pinette

There will be eight talks in the Engineering Theater on the showfloor on the first day of the show. They include:

After the expo floor closes at 5:00 p.m., we’ll hold a Mix & Mingle Networking Reception with drinks, light appetizers, and time to connect with other Robotics Summit attendees and speakers in Exhibit Hall C.

At 6:00 p.m., the ticketed RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Dinner will start. The evening will honor winners of the Robot of the Year, Startup of the Year, Application of the Year, and Robots for Good categories and more.