The Q2 Numbers Are In: Robot Orders Rise as Demand Moves Beyond Automotive

North American companies ordered 8,940 robots worth $622 million in the second quarter of 2026. Unit orders increased 4.3% from a year earlier, while order value climbed 21.3%. Those are strong headline numbers, but the bigger story is what changed underneath them.

In this episode, Aaron Prather, Director of Market Intelligence at A3, joins Principal Analyst Alex Coleman to explain why non-automotive customers accounted for 56% of Q2 robot units and how semiconductors, life sciences, food and consumer goods, metals and automotive components are offsetting continued weakness among automotive OEMs. They also examine whether the gap between unit growth and order value reflects pricing pressure, demand for larger systems or buyers adding more vision and advanced functionality.

The conversation explores why automotive OEMs remain under pressure as EV investment slows and trade uncertainty complicates capital planning, why automotive components have held up better and what consumers keeping vehicles longer could mean for parts demand. Aaron and Alex also unpack the sharp swings in collaborative robot orders, with cobots falling to 12.7% of Q2 units, and ask whether the category itself is getting harder to define as capabilities overlap.

Finally, they look ahead to Q3 and Q4 and the sectors most likely to shape the rest of 2026, including logistics, material handling, life sciences and semiconductors.

Read the Q2 2026 robot order report:
automate.org/market-intelligence/insights/robo…

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