Barclays has published a Special Report: ‘AI gets physical’. Here’s the opening pitch:
AI’s next frontier is physical: humanoid robots – robots in human form – are stepping out of the lab and into the real world. They could take on the tough, repetitive jobs humans increasingly avoid in manufacturing, agriculture and healthcare – working alongside people and augmenting the workforce.
Authors Zornitsa Todorova and Carlos Eduardo Garcia Martinez write that a 30x drop in unit costs over the past decade means that the market for these “humanoids” — which they describe somewhat imprecisely as “cars in miniature” — could grow from $2–3bn today into a (“most-optimistic” scenario) $200bn industry by 2035. The tailwinds include ageing populations, growing urbanisation and shifting job preferences.
