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From humanoids and Robots-as-a-Service to nearshoring and lights-out operations, here are my top predictions for what is coming next in 2026.

AI may learn better when it’s allowed to talk to itself. Researchers showed that internal “mumbling,” combined with short-term memory, helps AI adapt to new tasks, switch goals, and handle complex challenges more easily. This approach boosts learning efficiency while using far less training data. It could pave the way for more flexible, human-like AI systems.

As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like "eyebrows" and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Researchers are continuing to make progress on developing a new synthetic material that behaves like biological muscle, an advancement that could provide a path to soft robotics, prosthetic devices and advanced human-machine interfaces. Their research, recently published in Advanced Functional Materials, demonstrates a hydrogel-based actuator system that combines movement, control and fuel delivery in a single integrated platform.

Last year, when The New York Times reported that Amazon's robotics team's ultimate goal was to automate 75% of the company's operations, replacing more than half a million human jobs in an attempt to pass cost savings onto customers, it was a stark reminder of robots' ever-expanding role in reshaping the American workplace.

Collaborative robots, or cobots, are required to maintain compliant interaction while delivering rapid response performance when subjected to sudden, strong forces, such as during impact riveting, resistance spot welding, or precision shaft-hole assembly. This makes low-damping, high-stiffness impedance control critical for the reliable execution of these tasks.

Each motor requires high power density and precise control, all packed into a small form factor. TI’s technology reduces the size of the board by integrating FETs, drivers and current sensing into one package.

A research team from the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory and the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit at Toyohashi University of Technology investigated how the movements of autonomous mobile robots influence human emotional responses during passing encounters in virtual reality (VR) environments.

Humanoid robots look impressive and have enormous potential to change our daily lives, but they still have a reputation for being clunky. They're also heavy and stiff, and if they fall, they can easily break and injure people around them.

The convergence of AI breakthroughs and robotics is creating a moment for which the field has been waiting decades.

A new survey finds that 41% of execs using AI are saving at least eight hours a week with the tech.

Even more eye-opening: An additional 33% of execs say they’re saving at least four-to-eight hours a week with AI.

That makes 74% of execs total who say they’re reaping significant productivity gains using AI.

One downside finding of the survey: Employees tend to be less enthused about AI — which many believe can be easily solved with highly targeted training.

In other news and analysis on AI writing:

*ChatGPT: Now You Can Pull-Up Chats Up To A Year Old: ChatGPT’s maker OpenAI just made the chatbot significantly more useful by enabling subscribers to access chats up to a year old.

Observes writer Graham Barlow: “This new memory upgrade for Plus and Pro users turns old chats into something searchable, permanent — and surprisingly useful.

“As a Plus user, I just tried it — and it’s actually pretty impressive.”

*Gmail’s AI Makeover: One Writer’s Take: Wall Street Journal Reporter Nicole Nguyen put Gmail’s new AI chops through their paces – and came away hoping it becomes her own solution.

Observes Nguyen: “If this comes to my work email, I’d probably use it daily. I write a lot of work emails.”

Key AI tools Nguyen liked with the new Gmail: The newest AI auto-writer, as well as AI help with email sorting.

*PDF-Maker Adobe Acrobat Gets an AI Makeover: Inventor of the PDF — Adobe — is out with an AI upgrade that enables users to:

–Transform a PDF into a presentation

–Transform a PDF into a podcast

–Edit a PDF using natural language

Observes writer Steve Clark: “From the demo videos Adobe showed me, they all look helpful in speeding up workflows — and pretty easy to use.”

*AI Agent Reliability: Still Hit-or-Miss: Hopes for a world powered by AI agents that can reliably complete multi-step tasks still remain stuck on the distant horizon.

A new report from Anthropic – maker of what many consider one of the most advanced forms of AI agenting – finds its Claude AI agent can only claim 60% reliability on tasks that take less than an hour.

The takeaway: Before you invest a dime in the ‘wonder-that-is-AI-agents,’ demand provable results over thousands of test-runs.

*ClawdBot: Open Source’s Answer for AI Agents: Bleeding-edge AI expert Alex Finn has found the AI tool of his dreams and its name is ClawdBot.

An open source alternative to Claude’s new AI agent Cowork, the new tech essentially leaves Cowork in the dust, according to Finn.

Click here for Finn’s complete, 27-minute video guide to getting the most from ClawdBot.

*Gartner: AI Spending to Hit $2.5 Trillion for 2026: Global business investment in AI is expected to be fearless this year – a trend that should also bleed into 2027, according to market researcher Gartner.

Observes writer Jane McCallion: “AI infrastructure gets the lion’s share — with an anticipated $1.3 billion.”

As for 2027: Expect AI spending to tick up to $3.3 trillion, according to Gartner.

*High-Up On the AI Jobs Chopping Block: Writers: Yet another study – this time from Microsoft – reveals writers’ jobs are among those that are most likely to be replaced or threatened by AI.

Specifically, writers and authors were among the top five jobs most vulnerable to AI in coming years, according to the study.

Plus, writing-related jobs – such as news analysts, reporters, journalists, editors, proofreaders and PR specialists – were also high up on the list.

*AI-and-the-Law: Go-To Legal Database Getting AI Upgrade: LexisNexis – and key info source for lawyers – is prepping roll-out of a major AI upgrade.

Dubbed Protégé AI assistant, the tool suite “combines hundreds of pre-built litigation and transactional workflows with a custom workflow builder in what the company describes as an integrated, private and secure legal AI workspace — all backed by LexisNexis’s library of citable authority,” according to writer Bob Ambrogi.

*AI Big Picture: He Who Grabs the Energy Wins AI: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says companies that can secure reliable energy sources will turn-out to be the true winners in the race for AI domination.

That could spell particular trouble for European companies.

Observes writer Kai Nicol-Schwarz: “Europe has some of the highest energy costs in the world, which rose after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent sanctions.”

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–Joe Dysart is editor of RobotWritersAI.com and a tech journalist with 20+ years experience. His work has appeared in 150+ publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times of London.

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A massive new study comparing more than 100,000 people with today’s most advanced AI systems delivers a surprising result: generative AI can now beat the average human on certain creativity tests. Models like GPT-4 showed strong performance on tasks designed to measure original thinking and idea generation, sometimes outperforming typical human responses. But there’s a clear ceiling. The most creative humans — especially the top 10% — still leave AI well behind, particularly on richer creative work like poetry and storytelling.

Nature is, of course, the master engineer—been there, seen it, solved it. While we struggle to design buildings that don't overheat or feel like concrete cages, nature has been perfecting comfortable living structures for ages. Now scientists are borrowing from the natural world again; this time, to build a swarm of interconnected mini-robots that could lead to buildings with dynamic facades that respond to sunlight and the people inside.

For decades, the personal computer has been the center of our digital universe, with Windows acting as the undisputed sun. But as we move into 2026, a gravitational shift is occurring. The rise of Generative AI and autonomous agents isn’t […]

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