More than 6,000 people gathered in Las Vegas for the Manifest 2025 last week. The supply chain trade show and conference, now in its fourth year, has continued to grow, with over 300 speakers and 300 exhibitors. How are robotics and automation addressing market demand?
Automated Warehouse met with numerous hardware and software suppliers, integrators, and end users at Manifest 2025, and here are some takeaways.
1. Inventory the application to see
Inventory management was one of the hottest applications at Manifest 2025. From drones to mobile robots, methods of collecting data for analysis and reporting stood out at this year’s event.
For instance, Dexory announced that it has “reshaped” its DexoryView product to provide greater visibility to warehouse operators. The Wallingford, U.K.-based company featured a telescoping robot that was one of the most eye-catching systems at the show (see video below).
“It’s still a journey for customers,” said Todd Boone, head of North America at Dexory. “The U.S. market discovered us last year, and customers are asking, ‘Can I send it out to scan a single aisle?’ With new sensors and timely data from the Insight module, they can have a more timely view of the entire facility.”
Dane Technologies, a hardware partner of Brain Corp, also showed its inventory robots.
Inventory drone providers at the show included Corvus Robotics, Gather AI, Verity, and Nokia Autonomous Inventory Monitoring Service (AIMS). Each discussed the importance of artificial intelligence, not only for safely navigating dynamic warehouse environments, but also for processing data and delivering operational insights.
Similarly, software providers such as Softeon and Radix emphasized the importance of taking the vast amounts of data that can now be collected more regularly and presenting them in useful ways to warehouse operators, third-party logistics providers (3PLs), and their customers.
Dot.ai and Wurth Industry North America (WINA) have partnered to track moving assets with RFID tags. This data is then integrated with WINA’s kanban asset intelligence by Dot.ai’s software as a service (SaaS).
“We’ve redesigned the data flow in response to the increasing cost of hand scanning,” said Bob Reny, CRO of Dot.ai. “We want to change logistics with no-cost integration.”
“This will transform supply chains as a whole, like Factory 5.0,” added Jeff Smith, chief operating officer of WINA. “Wurth’s customers for Class C components want deployments within weeks.”
2. ASRS abundant at Manifest 2025
Automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) providers Exotec, Ocado Intelligent Automation, Kardex, and Swisslog all had a presence at Manifest 2025. Market leader AutoStore did not have a booth but was represented by partners Kardex and Swisslog.
Dense cube storage offers high throughput and space utilization. However, prospective users may be put off by deployment complexities and fixed infrastructure in comparison with existing processes or mobile robots, as discussed in Automated Warehouse‘s recent webinar and report.
Each vendor has addressed these concerns in different ways. For example, Exotec this week launched its next-generation Skypod, which includes updated software and integrated picking and packing features. In a session, Stanislas Normand, managing director for North America at Exotec, discussed how Lane Automotive improved efficiency with Skypod.
Rapyuta Robotics joined the ASRS market with its offering, which includes movable shelving and picking from the bottom of storage racks rather than the top as with other systems. In November 2024, it opened demonstration space in Schaumburg, Ill.
3. Fewer AMR vendors, but larger fleets
There were fewer autonomous mobile robot (AMR) vendors at Manifest 2025 than in past years, partly because of the challenges that segment has faced in a post-pandemic sales slump. Companies had overexpanded capacity with the expectation that increased e-commerce demand would continue indefinitely, noted industry observers.
Locus Robotics was among the few with a significant display, right next to DHL Supply Chain‘s large booth. Its person-to-goods Locus Origin bots were also featured in four other exhibits.
“Fast Pick has broadened what we can do,” Al Dekin, chief revenue officer at Locus, told Automated Warehouse. By clustering its AMRs, Locus solved a congestion problem and found that it can create a virtual putwall and increase throughput as it approaches 5 billion robot-assisted picks.
Robust AI brought its Carter Pro robotic shelves, which it previously showed at RoboBusiness and which won an RBR50 robotics innovation award for its deployment at DHL (see video below).
Mushiny discussed its sortation AMRs as an alternative to ASRS, but there were fewer high-lift or very narrow aisle (VNA) robots on display.
Fox Robotics, Big Joe Forklifts, and Dane Technologies showed their autonomous forklifts. “One theme is that there’s ROI [return on investment] and an opportunity for autonomy,” said Dan Johnson, owner of Dane Technologies.
Slip Robotics last year also won an RBR50 award for its mobile robot, which can load or unload the contents of an entire trailer or container at once. The company didn’t bring the large system to Manifest but said it plans to show it at ProMAT in a month.
Contoro Robotics talked about its unloading robot, but one of the other loading/unloading robots, such as Boston Dynamics’ Stretch, Pickle Robot‘s AI-driven system, or Mujin‘s TruckBot, were at this year’s event.
Speaking of trucks, there were fewer autonomous trucks than in past years, with Torc Robotics among those. Josh Araujo, CEO of Forterra, explained how the company’s military experience is helping with commercial autonomous yard trucks.
In addition, while mobile manipulators were discussed, there were only a few at Manifest 2025. RBR50 Application of the Year winner Brightpick brought one after announcing its new Giraffe model.
RIVR (previously Swiss-Mile) demonstrated a wheeled quadruped with a picking arm, and Boston Dynamics showed its Spot quadruped at DHL’s booth.
4. Software and AI get smarter, but no ‘silver bullet’
Instead of AMRs or robot arms, the number of software exhibitors increased at Manifest 2025. While many companies asserted that they were using the latest AI, relatively few are applying generative AI including large language models (LLMs) or foundation models to supply chain applications.
“Gen AI is getting smarter, but it’s no silver bullet,” noted Eddie Cissell, global logistics and engineering vice president at UPS Supply Chain Solutions, in a session in Industry 5.0. He said customers are interested in ROI, and AI could also help with user interfaces, predictive maintenance, and programming robots.
“To build foundation models, you need a lot of data,” said Jim Liefer, CEO of Ambi Robotics. “We have 200,000 hours of high-quality production data from 100 million complex sorts. There’s a $50 billion TAM [total addressable market] for pallet sortation.”
“AI is great, but everyone needs more data to build models,” added Zeena Keshjwi, senior product manager at Brain Corp. “We’re building models for team member optimization.”
There is no single path to increasing adoption, since warehouse environments and the goods they handle are so varied.
“I hate the term ‘best practices’ — there are good supply chain principles, and augmenting the human is critical,” asserted Craig Moore, vice president of sales for North America at Korber Supply Chain Software. The company acquired MercuryGate in August 2024 to improve operational visibility.
InOrbit touted its software for orchestrating and optimizing robot operations, or RobOps. Arkestro said its software applies AI to procurement, while Roboteon claimed that it can help with integration and interoperability among robots from different vendors.
Deposco uses aggregated anonymized data to train its cloud-based platform and identify carrier “blind spots,” said Jason Franklin, senior director of product marketing at the company.
“When dealing with AI, you need consistent training data and context,” he said. “Hyper-accuracy in packaging and automation can cause imbalances, and because we’re analyzing all the time, we can catch them earlier.”
5. Investors, 3PLs still bullish on supply chain automation at Manifest 2025
While venture capital firms did not have booths or sessions at Manifest 2025, they took advantage of the many networking venues around the event. The macroeconomic uncertainty around recent U.S. elections, geopolitical crises, and tariff threats did not deter the investors we spoke with.
They cited ongoing labor shortages, the need to improve efficiency and competitiveness, and increasingly scalable and affordable technologies such as AMRs and computer vision as drivers for investment.
Like other 3PLs at Manifest, Ryder System Inc. works with several automation providers and is watching the market for innovations.
“It’s about matching profiles of suppliers with areas for improvement,” said Jeff Peterson, senior director of warehouse automation at Ryder. “Locus is a great example of a vendor whose technology makes it easy for companies to enter their automation journeys without too much disruption of existing processes.”
“We have 550 sites across the U.S. and Canada, and automation providers need to understand our business,” Brian Gaunt, vice president of digitalization at DHL Supply Chain, told Automated Warehouse. “We want to increase safety, productivity, and accuracy for our customers at scale, and we’ve learned from failures how to integrate technology and processes for success.”
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