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Humanoid buildup overlooks the robots already running factories
Millions of robotic machines are already operating in factories worldwide, but oversight and safety standards risk falling behind.
Humanoid robots may be dominating the conversation about the future of work, but they represent only a fraction of the machines already operating in factories worldwide.
That’s according to the International Federation of Robots’ (IFR) latest World Robotics Report. Published last week, the report found that around 7,000 humanoid robots were sold for industrial and professional service applications in 2025, compared with roughly half a million industrial robots installed that year.
Overall, five million robots are now operating in factories globally, according to the IFR report. Asia accounted for the strongest growth, followed by the Americas, while Europe expanded more slowly.
As that installed base continues to grow, some in the industry argue that the focus on humanoids risks overshadowing the more pressing challenge of governing the machines already at work.
Kumar Sokka, group CEO of Acre Security and a former Rockwell Automation executive, said the humanoid is causing their industrial counterparts to be overlooked, despite their market dominance.
"The humanoid figure is the one everyone will quote, but on its own it's misleading," he said. "The machine workforce isn't coming. It's been here for years, and it doesn't look like a humanoid. The humanoid is the newest and smallest part of it."
A regulated workforce
As the number of connected machines operating in industrial environments grows, Sokka argued that organizations will need to think beyond the physical capabilities of robots and consider what they are authorized to do.
"The question that never gets asked in the excitement is who governs what these machines are allowed to do," he said. "Every one of them, humanoid or not, is a non-human actor moving through a physical space. It opens doors, enters restricted areas, works alongside people."
Traditional access-control systems have largely been designed around human workers and their credentials, a process Sokka argues should be extended to the machines now with humans.
This need for oversight and control is only expected to grow as factories deploy increasingly large fleets of autonomous machines. The challenge, he added, is less about the prospect of a robot suddenly behaving unpredictably and more about the accumulation of machines with persistent access rights.
"As the installed base grows, the real risk isn't a robot going rogue in some dramatic way. It's thousands of machines holding standing access that no one is actively managing," Sokka said. "The organizations that get ahead of this will govern machines the way they govern employees and contractors: a defined identity, a set of permissions, and a way to revoke access the moment something changes."
Humanoid’s potential
While 7,000 humanoid units may appear small compared with the hundreds of thousands of industrial robots installed each year, George Pappas, a robotics professor and director of the University of Pennsylvania's Singh Program in AI, said the potential addressable humanoid market is much broader.
"The growth is in personal robotics,” he said. “These are machines that work in homes, hospitals, stores, and other spaces built for people rather than for robots, and humanoids are the most visible example."
"Seven thousand units looks small today. But the addressable market isn't factory cells. It is everywhere people live and work, and AI is finally making general-purpose robots plausible," he added.
For businesses, this creates a distinction between managing existing industrial fleets and preparing for a new generation of machines designed to operate in less controlled environments. The takeaway for businesses, Pappas said, is to optimize the industrial robots you have, but place your strategic bets on robots that operate around people.
As robots increasingly move into environments designed for humans, companies will also need safeguards that account for how AI systems perceive, interpret and act on the physical world.
"Safety and security can't be an afterthought or a compliance checkbox," Pappas said. "In personal robotics, one high-profile failure could set an entire category back years. Trust isn't a feature of the product. It is what makes the market possible."
Scarlett Evans is a freelance writer with a focus on robotics and emerging technologies. Previously, she was assistant editor at IoT World Today, where she specialized in robotics and smart city technologies. Scarlett also has a background in the mining and resources sector, with experience at Mine Australia, Mine Technology and Power Technology.
