‘‘Twas the night before Automated and all through TRI, not a robot was stirring, just Erin McColl and I. We watched several YouTube videos with great glee, for the latest in AI and autonomy.” 

Welcome to this end-of-year special where host Brian Heater and Toyota Research Institute’s Erin McColl break down the most compelling robot videos of 2025. What’s real, what’s hype, and what actually moved automation technologies forward. From diffusion policies and dexterity challenges to home robots, humanoids, and honest failure cases, this episode explores the trends shaping robotics heading into 2026, plus the reveal of the 2025 Readers’ Poll winner.

See the full list of 10 videos under consideration on YouTube. 

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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Ahead of Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash’s release, we’ve got one hot conversation with Ben Procter. The film’s production designer, who previously worked on the Transformers series and Prometheus, discusses how real-world robots influenced the sequel’s autonomous systems and mechs.

From Avatar’s crab suits to swarm construction robots, this conversation dives deep into how real robotics, industrial design, and human biomechanics shape some of cinema’s most iconic machines. Ben Procter explains how mech suits are piloted, why insects, not humans, are the real inspiration, and how realism makes science fiction hit harder.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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For more than 30 years, University of Massachusetts Lowell professor Holly Yanco has been a leading mind in human-robot interaction. It seems the rest of the automation industry may finally be catching up with her decades of research.

Professor Yanco delves into the complexities of human–robot interaction, from telepresence robots and robot trust to assistive tech, exoskeleton advances, and the challenges of real-world deployment. She shares lessons from decades of testing, breaking, and improving robots, why telepresence robots never had their predicted breakout moment, and what it takes to build capability-driven systems people can actually trust. This episode covers: agricultural robotics, underwater testing, community-college talent pipelines, and what it really takes to grow the next generation of roboticists.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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For Grace Brown, a humanoid robot future is a hopeful future. Andromeda’s Abi is designed to build connections in an increasingly isolated world, focused on older adults in care facilities. It’s a group that is a prime target for transformative technologies, but is too often overlooked.

In this episode, she talks about designing Abi, the robot bringing real connection back into aged care, the jaw-dropping moments that proved it was working, and the obsession, grit, and magic behind building a billion-dollar startup from nothing.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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In 2018, Dusty Robotics quite literally got in on the ground floor of automating the $2 trillion U.S. construction industry. Founder and CEO Tessa Lau discusses the ups and downs of those early days, and what it means to go from engineer to executive.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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AI Go-to-Market Lead for Energy & Utilities at Google AI, Dianne Eldridge, knows how to communicate with executives. The automation vet is also an expert at cutting to the heart of the matter in conversations about industry, society, and her own personal journey. 

In this episode, Dianne shares her remarkable journey, from surviving a three-family apartment in Beijing to becoming an executive shaping global AI strategy.

She and Brian Heater explore AI’s impact on jobs, immigrant grit, ethical guardrails, leadership mistakes, and what it really takes to grow careers in the age of automation.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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Ken Goldberg is a great resource to have on speed dial when those complex robotics questions emerge. As a longtime U.C. Berkeley professor and cofounder of Ambi Robotics, he’s familiar with the promise the category holds and the vast amount of work and data it will take to bridge that gap.

From Ambi Robotics’ data flywheel and the “robot data gap” to why personal use of humanoids may remain decades away, Goldberg and Brian Heater explore the hard truths behind dexterity, simulation, and learning at scale. Lock in for a synopsis of where robotics stands today and where it’s heading next.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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A crush on a fictional astromech droid at age 11 set Helen Grenier down a path toward cofounding iRobot, the most influential consumer robotics firm of the early  21st century. Since then, Grenier has served as CEO of garden weeding robotics company, Tertill, and defense drone firm, Cyphy Works. 

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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What began as a University of Illinois engineering project has grown into a startup aimed at improving lives. Psyonic CEO Aadeel Ahktar discusses the company’s journey from human prosthesis to humanoid manipulation.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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Amazon Robotics' Chief Technologist discusses his journey from undergraduate aeronautics to helping the world's largest retailer deploy one million robots.

He shares how Amazon is reinventing automation through human-machine collaboration, scalable AI, and a culture that values curiosity over hype. From early lessons at MIT to leading one of the world’s largest robotics teams, Tye Brady explains what it really takes to make robots that work for people.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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As a long time Amazon VP, Brad Porter knows what it takes to deploy industrial robots at scale. Now doing the same with his own company, Cobot, Porter delivers a dose of reality to the hardware hype cycle.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas has remained one of the more transparent and pragmatic executives in the humanoid robotics race. Here he takes on the Austin company’s Google partnership, safety, and what scaling really looks like.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automated.fm. 

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Perhaps no one has done more to promote industrial robot safety than Roberta Nelson Shea. For decades, Universal Robotics’ global technical compliance officer has been a tireless advocate for maintaining automation safeguarding for human workers. This episode explores how robot safety standards have evolved and why they’re critical to the future of automation. From cages and compliance to collaborative robots and humanoids, Brian and Roberta explore how safety and productivity can work in tandem.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automate.org/podcast. 

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When I want an automation reality check, I go to Rodney Brooks, one of the past century’s most influential roboticists. The Robust.AI CTO cofounded iRobot and Rethink Robotics after spending a quarter-century teaching the subject at MIT. His annual scorecard is an important progress report for AI and automation hype cycles. In this episode, we talk about humanoid robots, AI hype, and the future of automation. 

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automate.org/podcast. 

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Few alive have left as large a mark on robotics as Marc Raibert. After founding and running Boston Dynamics for three decades, the former MIT professor went on to create the RAI Institute. These days, Raibert is exploring physical AI, general purpose robotics, and the occasional guitar tube amplifier.

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “Automated” at automate.org/podcast. 

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Just over a decade ago, NVIDIA got out of mobile processing and into robotics. Deepu Talla helped lead the risky push that is now paying off in the form of the chipmaker’s Jetson platform. The industry veteran explains how a company best known for its gaming graphics cards became a ubiquitous fixture on next-gen robotics. 

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automate.org/podcast. 

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When we recorded this episode, Melonee Wise was the chief product officer at humanoid pioneer, Agility Robotics. After kickstarting her career as employee number two at Willow Garage, Wise cofounded and ran Fetch Robotics for the next decade. As for where she’ll be when you read this podcast description — who can say where the Robot Ninja will strike next?

We’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@automate.org.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of Automated at automate.org/podcast. 

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