Enquirer Consulting Group
Nupur Patra | Trossen Robotics | October 2026
As of October 26, 2026
Trossen Robotics builds the arms, stations and teleoperation hardware behind physical AI. Its new lineup of WidowX arms, the Workbench station, the Rivet mobile manipulator, and the Glide leader arm with its Cockpit station is built for commercial teams as well as research labs.
This map covers the commercial buyers you named when we spoke on October 21, from industrial automation and the factory floor to warehouses, pharma, and the AI companies and startups moving into physical AI. It shows how many of them there are where a clean public count exists, and who usually signs off at each.
Research labs and universities stay a market for Trossen. This page points at the commercial side, where the new lineup is headed.
Where a group matches one industry code, the count is every US firm in that industry, by staff size. The buyers inside it are the teams running automation, data collection or robot learning work, most often in the larger bands. A group without a clean public count says so rather than showing a number.
| Group | Organizations in the US | Under 20 staff | 20 to 99 | 100 to 499 | 500 or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial automation and robotics companies | no clean public count | ||||
| Manufacturers automating the factory floor | no clean public count | ||||
| AI companies and startups moving into physical AI | no clean public count | ||||
| Commercial research and development firms in the physical, engineering and life sciences | about 10,000 | about 7,800 | about 1,200 | about 520 | about 550 |
| Warehousing and storage operators | about 9,200 | about 5,100 | about 1,700 | about 1,100 | about 1,300 |
| Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturers | about 2,300 | about 1,400 | about 440 | about 290 | about 210 |
US firm counts by industry code, banded deliberately.
Trossen sorts the lineup by four uses. The groups most likely to buy for each are our read.
| Use | Trossen hardware | Groups most likely to buy for it |
|---|---|---|
| Research | WidowX arms, Workbench, Rivet, Glide | Commercial research and development firms, AI companies starting robot learning work |
| Data collection | Workbench and Rivet fleets, Glide with Cockpit, the open-source Trossen SDK | AI companies and startups building robot training data |
| Teleoperation | Glide with Cockpit, paired with WidowX arms, Workbench or Rivet | AI companies and startups, automation teams collecting demonstrations |
| Deployment | Rivet, Workbench and WidowX arms, built for reliability in real-world environments | Startups scaling into production, manufacturers, warehouses, pharma plants |
Trossen's own website, home and product pages, read October 26, 2026.
Titles vary by organization. These are the roles that usually own the hardware decision for physical AI and automation work.
| Group | Usually signs off | What they decide |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial automation and robotics companies | VP of Engineering, Director of Robotics, Director of Automation | Which arms and stations their engineers build, test and ship on |
| Manufacturers automating the factory floor | Director of Automation, Director of Advanced Manufacturing, Director of Manufacturing Engineering | Pilot cells on the line, data collection for new tasks, what moves into production |
| AI companies and startups moving into physical AI | Founder or CTO, Head of Robotics, Head of Robot Learning | Data collection hardware, teleoperation rigs, and how many stations to run |
| Commercial research and development firms | Director of Research, Lab Director, Principal Engineer | Lab hardware for new robot learning and manipulation projects |
| Warehousing and storage operators | VP of Operations, Director of Automation, Director of Innovation | Picking and handling pilots, mobile manipulation trials in buildings they already run |
| Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturers | Director of Lab Automation, Director of Automation Engineering, Head of Manufacturing Technology | Lab and line automation, repeatable handling of samples and materials |
You told us this is a demo-led market. Buyers want to see the hardware run, connected to their own software or on their own floor, before they commit.
Early on, a short recorded demo of each product does the job. Buyers further along want to ask about latency, payload and specifications live, so they go to a walkthrough with your solutions team, by video or on site.
When Trossen picks its shows for 2027, the same groups are the ones to book ahead, so the days at the booth are already full of demos.
The people who usually sign at the groups above, one a company. Work emails and phone numbers checked on Oct 26, 2026.
| Name | Role | Company | Where | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andy Chen | Head of Robotics | Runway | New York, NY | andy@runwayml.com | |
| Mark Wright | Director of Robotics Engineering | Daifuku North America | Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex | +1 972 898 9918 | |
| John Spletzer | VP of Robotics | Seegrid | Philadelphia | jspletzer@seegrid.com | +1 610 986 6206 |
| Ali Delkaninia | Director of Automation | QuantumScape | San Jose, CA | adelkaninia@quantumscape.com | +1 408 613 2640 |
| Michael Crowley | Director of Automation | 3D Infotech | Irvine, CA | mike@3dinfotech.com | +1 949 837 7117 |
| Michael Pozo | Director of Automation | Buchanan Automation Inc | San Jose, CA | michaelp@buchanan-a.com | +1 650 619 0184 |
| Brad Edington | Director of Automation | Ergonomic Partners | Hanna City, IL | bedington@ergonomicpartners.com | +1 309 265 6732 |
| Mahli Guerrero | Director of Automation | HOJ Innovations | Salt Lake City | mahli.guerrero@hoj.net | +1 435 881 6018 |
| Michael Weida | Director of Automation | Blue Ridge Inc. | Muncie, IN | +1 765 212 1940 | |
| Michael Kryszak | Director of Automation | XDS Holdings, Inc. | Appleton, WI | mkryszak@teamxds.com | +1 920 378 9879 |
Built from public federal business counts, Trossen's own website and our call on October 21, counts banded deliberately.
If a walk-through is useful, pick a time at cal.com/ecg.
Prepared by Matthew, matthew@enquirerconsulting.com.