The Human Partner—for Now

They sort packages at warehouses and help nurses with patient needs. They greet customers and help them navigate retail stores. They alert supermarket managers to hazards and low inventory. No, not humans—so-called cobots.

While AI agents grab the headlines and humanoid robots capture the imagination, cobots—robots designed to work collaboratively alongside humans—are quietly becoming a major force in business. Cobots are among the fastest-growing segments of the overall robotics market, with their share of it projected to be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion by 2030. “Cobots are on the rise because they are cheap, fast, and they work,” says Kara Ruskin, a senior client partner in the Technology practice at Korn Ferry.

Cobots aren’t like AI agents, which act as digital assistants embedded in software, or humanoid robots, which are typically walled off from human workers. Cobots are a combination of both. Advances in navigation and intelligence capabilities allow them to automate physical tasks safely in the presence of humans. “The advances in AI are driving a lot of the excitement around cobots,” says Ruskin. 

It’s easy to see the appeal—and value—of cobots to manufacturing and industrial leaders. For one thing, they can work around the clock, performing both repetitive tasks, like moving or loading skids, and dangerous, precise ones, like welding. One study found that companies that paired cobots with humans saw an 85% increase in productivity; other firms have reported gains of 200% or more. In fields like healthcare, cobots are increasingly seen as a potential solution to chronic labor shortages, says David Vied, global sector leader for the Medical Devices and Diagnostics practice at Korn Ferry. They are already showing up in hospitals to help answer patient questions and transport medicine or blood samples. “We’re going to see more of them in healthcare,” says Vied.

But they’ve encountered one major stumbling block: They haven’t managed to penetrate the corporate office, says Bryan Ackermann, head of AI strategy and transformation at Korn Ferry. For office workers’ use cases, AI agents operating in the virtual world are better than cobots inhabiting the real one—at least for now. “The cycle turns with AI are getting shorter and shorter, so leaders can’t be dismissive about the growth in cobots,” he says.

To be sure, while cobots are designed to work alongside humans, some experts believe it won’t be long until they can replace them. Moreover, if the predictions of some corporate leaders are correct, cobots’ moment in the spotlight could be limited: Eventually, those predictions say, technology will become sufficiently advanced and cost-efficient that fully humanoid robots will supplant cobots. Or as Ruskin puts it, “Cobots still need humans to make decisions and for quality control, but pretty soon they won’t.”

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