MT Magazine January/February 2026

THE INDUSTRY UPDATES ISSUE

FEATURE STORY

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Scanning a door panel at the Detroit Assembly Complex – Jefferson. AI can help improve quality. (Image: Stellantis)

Humanoids: $erious — For Now A lot of attention is being paid to humanoid robots. One might even conclude that their mass adoption is just around the corner. However, Dayton Horvath, AMT’s director, emerging technology and investment, pointed out that a huge data set is required to make robots do human-like tasks in a human-like way. This means a lot of resources – both digital and financial. Consequently, they’re likely only to be used by companies that have the wherewithal to address the high cost of implementation – companies like Amazon. AI is all the buzz, but it needs to be contextualized. For example, Stellantis, a company with the resources for AI, is rolling out the technology in its factories for use in vision systems, machine data monitoring, machine diagnostics, part picking optimization, and other tasks. So, before we get to AI-powered humanoids, there is still a way to go. Horvath said the ubiquity of cobots – collaborative robots – will grow over the next two to three years as they become easier to use.

Smart Manufacturing Matters A 2025 Deloitte survey of 600 executives from manufacturing companies larger than those in GBM’s Top Shops survey indicated a tremendous interest in smart manufacturing, including the deployment of factory automation hardware, data analytics, active sensors, vision systems, robotics, IoT platforms, wearables, and cloud computing. Notably, 92% of those surveyed responded that smart manufacturing will be the main driver of competitiveness