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Cobots have been promising the fenceless factory for almost fifteen years. In 2026, with the market heading toward eleven billion dollars and 70% of orders coming from outside automotive, it is time to review what has delivered and what remains open.
The dark factory, with no human workers on shift, has been promised for years but is only now starting to multiply in earnest. The Chinese and Japanese cases show a mature model; in Europe and Spain the reality is different. An honest look at what works and what is still hype.
Small language models have become genuinely useful. Phi-3.5, Gemma 2, and Llama 3.2 fit on modest hardware and solve bounded tasks without reaching the cloud. A look at where they fit on the factory floor and when skipping the large model pays off.
