The A3 Business Forum is an annual networking event for leaders in the automation and robotics industries, put on by the Association for Advancing Automation (A3). As first-time attendees, Simplexity Product Development VP of Engineering Doug Harriman and I attended the event to learn more about recent trends and to get to know more people on the forefront of automation and robotics innovation.
Simplexity Product Development VP of Engineering, Doug Harriman, and CEO, Dorota Shortell, at the 2025 A3 Business Forum
Opening Keynote: Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances by Leland Melvin
Leland Melvin was a wide receiver in the NFL and also earned a degree in Chemical Engineering. He walked us through this career journey, including working for NASA and then becoming an astronaut. A heartbreaking story that he shared was that during one of the underwater training exercises, the device to clear his ears due to the pressure was missing, causing incredible pain, bleeding from one ear, and then hearing loss. After surgery and time, he regained hearing in one ear, but he thought that accident would mean he could never fulfill his dream of actually going up into space. It was through his determination to keep trying and a key mentor believing in him that he was able to finally fulfill his dream and be an astronaut, even without regaining his full hearing. I loved hearing all the anecdotes and videos of what it was like to be in space, including his emotion around seeing the earth from space with a myriad of indescribable shades of blues in the oceans of our planet.
The main takeaway was to keep believing in yourself and not to let what seems impossible stop you. There are ways outside of our imagination for incredible opportunities to arise that we should be poised to jump upon when they emerge.
Astronaut Leland Melvin sharing his career journey “Chasing Space”
2025 Global Economic Update: Align Resources for the Rise Ahead with Alan Beaulieu
Alan Beaulieu is a renowned economist who has been giving predictions on the economy based on leading indicators for years. He has an impressive track record of his predictions being over 99% accurate, year over year. The predictions he gave that are more relevant to the robotics & automation industries include:
- There will be a slow recovery in 2025, accelerating in the 2nd half of the year.
- 2026 will be a strong year and then flatten out towards the end
- While interest rates will continue to slowly go down in 2025 and 2026, they will not return to the very low levels of the 2010s and he predicts more inflation at the end of 2026.
- Labor shortages will continue to increase due to Baby Boomers retiring and not enough people in the following generations to replace them. This will be an added incentive for more automation and robotics.
- They are predicting a depression in the 2030’s. This is due to demographics, rising health care costs with an aging population, inflation, and the US national debt.
- Businesses should plan ahead and build out a strategy to address the likely economic upturn and then downturn rather than only being reactive.
One of the main insights is that labor shortages will only get worse, not better. I believe that companies who rely on labor that can be automated should start investing in robotic and automation solutions in the next two years during a growing and thriving economy when they have cash to make the investments. Deprioritize short-term returns and invest in long-term infrastructure.
A3 also gave a special speaking award to Alan as he’ll be retiring. He’s a rare gem of not only being a talented and accurate economist but is funny and engaging as a speaker. He will be missed!
Networking
Before I get to summarizing the next speaker, I would be remiss to not mention the networking. I feel that A3 did a stellar job emphasizing and facilitating networking during this event. All the meals were served buffet style with no assigned seating and on small plates. That meant that you got one serving of food, sat down to chat with a group of people, then got up to get another serving or dessert, and then had the opportunity to go meet others without it feeling awkward. All the attendees are there to network and learn and there are no booths or company displays so that companies don’t get into selling mode.
As a first-time attendee I felt welcomed and empowered to go up to people and introduce myself, which was impressive with over 700 attendees. It was also nice to see that they are encouraging more diversity in the organization, with a Women’s Empowerment Lunch on the first day, which helps women who are still a minority in this industry feel like they belong.
They’ve also done a great job on a custom A3 Business Forum app, which showed the full agenda, attendees, and allowed messaging people you wanted to meet to set up a time to talk. It’s clear that they really thought this through and the execution from the entire A3 staff was top notch!
Simplexity CEO Dorota Shortell and ARM Institute Chief Strategy Officer, Suzy Teele.
A screenshot of the custom A3 Business Forum app home screen.
Keynote: The Hype-notism of Our Human and Robot Future by Dr. Rodney Brooks
Dr. Rodney Brooks has had one of the most impressive careers in robotics in the field. He has founded multiple successful robotics companies (iRobot, Rethink Robotics) and is an esteemed professor at MIT. His talk focused on the hype that is going on in the field of AI and robotics and shared some of the other hype cycles that he’s experienced:
AI-related hype cycles according to Dr. Rodney Brooks
His main point is that AI and humanoid robots are not as close to being household staples as the media and hype makes it seem. Yes, there will certainly continue to be advances and AI is making those possible, but it takes a lot longer to bring an affordable and reliable true humanoid that can interact safely with humans than the public realizes. His current company, robust.ai, is focusing on increasing warehouse throughput with a scalable and flexible system that is designed to work alongside people, via an autonomous mobile robot cart.
How long does it take for robots to be widely adopted? He summed it up in his Three Laws of Robotics:
- The visual appearance of a robot makes a promise about what it can do and how smart it is. It needs to deliver or slightly over deliver on that promise or it will not be accepted.
- When robots and people coexist in the same spaces, the robots must not take away from people’s agency, particularly when the robots are failing, as inevitably they will at times.
- Technologies for robots need 10+ years of steady improvement beyond lab demos of the target tasks to mature to low cost and to have their limitations characterized well enough that they can deliver 99.9% of the time.
Dr. Rodney Brooks speaking at the 2025 A3 Business Forum, with earlier pictures of him with humanoid robots on the left.
Panel Discussion: The Next Frontiers: Where Automation is Going Next
I really enjoyed this panel discussion and seeing the practical applications of robots solving problems. Highlights included:
- Jon Battles, VP Technology and Strategy at Co.bot showing their collaborative robot for moving materials around warehouse applications.
- Nick Saunders, CEO & Founder of Hummingbird Systems describing their unique trolley tethered drone system for picking items from high bins. So awesome to see drones flying around warehouses!
- Rajat Bhageria, Founder & CEO of Chef Robotics took a very analytical approach in deciding which type of food robotics business to go after. Rather than addressing food prep in a restaurant setting, which is a small percent of the market, his company addresses the high mix, high volume business needs of food prep. This includes applications such as prepared meals, airline catering, and other food preparation that is so variable that it is still done by hand. Their AI platform adapts and keeps learning from real customer installations to keep improving.
- Ritesh Ragavender, Founder and CEO of Reflex Robotics had a vision for a humanoid-like robot, but rather than walking on 2 legs which is much harder to implement, the robot is on a stable and wheeled base. I love this design as it still allows arms that can manipulate items, the arms can travel up and down vertically (don’t you wish you sometimes had arms at waist height so you didn’t have to bend over?), and it’s a safer architecture since if the robot loses power, it doesn’t tip over like one that is balanced on 2 legs.
- Adrian Stoch, Chief Automation Officer at GXO, shared details around their incubator program, whose goal is to deploy more practical robots and automated solutions into the field.
Overall, it was an engaging and dynamic panel discussion where the leaders of these companies were excited about how robotics would become more mainstream in the coming years.
Keynote: Embodied AI: Technology, Trust, and How Not to Lose your Cool by Dr. Ayanna Howard
Dr. Ayanna Howard started her career as a Senior Robotics Researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has progressed through a multitude of impressive positions, culminating with her current one as the Dean of Engineering at the Ohio State University. She is the author or “Sex, Race, and Robots: How to Be Human In the Age of AI” and holds countless accolades, including being recognized by Forbes as one of the “Top 50 U.S. Women in Tech”.
What I really enjoyed about Dr. Howard’s presentation is that she focused on the human side of interacting with robots and technology. It’s fascinating how unintentional bias can come into play when people interact with robots. For example, there were multiple studies done where people will listen to robots rather than using their own judgement, thinking that the robot/technology must be right, even to their own detriment of finding a safe way out of a building when there is smoke!
It is our responsibility as designers and programmers of robots to consider how people will interact and be affected by robots in the workplace, home, and other areas of society. We need to make sure that we don’t take away people’s autonomy and maintain people’s control and ability to overrule robots when they make mistakes, which they inevitably will.
Conclusion
I was not able to attend the final day of the conference due to an early flight back home. I am sure the sessions were of equally high caliber and will be sure to read the highlights from other attendees. I look forward to staying connected with everyone that I met and hope that we can mutually help each other out in our businesses in the future. Robotics and automation seems to have a bright future in the years to come and I am eager to explore the ways in which Simplexity can play a part.