Oct 31, 2025 3 min read Daily Rundown

🤖 First Agentic AI Robotics

Plus: Shangri-La Goes Robotic, Autonomy Goes Underwater

Good Morning, Roboticists!

From the gilded halls of Shangri-La hotels to the cold depths beneath the sea, robots are no longer just tools; they’re becoming collaborators.

LOGISTICS

Robotec.ai Debuts First Agentic AI Robot for Industrial Warehouses

📌 What’s happening: At ROSCon 2025, Robotec.ai unveiled the first warehouse robot to demonstrate a full-stack agentic AI system in real-world logistics. Built on AMD Ryzen AI processors and Liquid AI’s LFM2-VL vision-language foundation model, the robot dynamically plans, reasons, and acts without scripts—interpreting human commands, detecting hazards, and self-correcting in real time. The system was validated through Robotec’s hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulations to close the gap between virtual testing and factory deployment.

🧠 How this hits reality: This is the first credible industrial proof that “agentic AI” isn’t just a software meme; it’s running on silicon and moving boxes. While others are still simulating embodiment in cloud data centers, Robotec’s AMR actually executes reasoning cycles on-device. For logistics and manufacturing players, it signals a shift from pre-programmed automation to continuously learning agents that can adapt inside human-dense, unstructured warehouses.

🤖 Key takeaway: It turns out the first real agent didn’t code an app, it picked up a box.

HOTEL

Keenon’s Robot Matrix Checks In at Shangri-La

📌 What’s happening: Keenon Robotics has officially deployed its humanoid robot XMAN-R1 and a full “robot matrix” of delivery, cleaning, and logistics bots at the new Shangri-La Traders Hotel near Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. It’s the world’s first hotel to run a general-purpose + special-purpose robot collaboration model — a hybrid workforce where humanoid greeters, food couriers, and cleaning bots handle nearly every operational task.

🧠 How this hits reality: Forget single-task delivery bots; this marks the first multi-robot ecosystem embedded end-to-end in a high-end hospitality chain. The humanoid runs on Keenon’s VLA (Vision-Language-Action) model, while purpose-built units optimize throughput behind the scenes. Although full hotel automation is still out of reach, for hotels squeezed by labor costs and service variance, this is the prototype of automation. Human staff become managers of machines, not the other way around.

🤖 Key takeaway: Shangri-La just turned its concierge desk into a control room, and the bellhop doesn’t take weekends off.

OCEAN

Tethys Robotics Secures €3.5M to Automate Underwater Inspections

📌 What’s happening: ETH Zurich spinout Tethys Robotics secured €3.5 million in pre-seed funding to scale its autonomous underwater robotics, Tethys ONE, a 35-kg hybrid AUV/ROV capable of inspecting pipelines, wind farms, and subsea infrastructure 300 meters deep without human pilots. The round was led by Redstone, with support from Alpine VC and the ETH Foundation.

🧠 How this hits reality: Offshore inspection is still a mix of manual dives and cable-tethered ROVs, both risky and costly. Tethys ONE changes the equation: AI-driven sensor fusion replaces operators, and a 10-minute deployment replaces ship-borne teams. It’s not just about autonomy — it’s about digitizing subsea maintenance the way drones did for aerial mapping. Expect oil, gas, and wind operators to quietly cut diver budgets next.

🤖 Key takeaway: If Boston Dynamics built Spot for land, Tethys just built its ocean twin — faster, colder, and with no humans left underwater.

QUICK HITS

iRobot’s stock plunged over 30%, as the once-leading Roomba maker faces bankruptcy after years of stalled innovation and tough competition.
University of Waterloo developed a new liquid crystal elastomer “artificial muscle” nine times stronger, making soft robots stronger and more flexible.
Surgical Automations raised $3.4 million to develop an AI-powered robotic system that automates gastrointestinal endoscopy.
Pi Network Ventures makes its first investment in OpenMind to build a decentralized OS and compute network for robots.
The UK’s largest robotic surgery training centre opened in Reading to train surgeons worldwide on the da Vinci system.

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