Modern Materials Handling published its 2026 Intralogistics Robotics Survey on 10 September 2026, reporting that warehouse and plant robotics have moved from isolated pilots into mainstream capital planning. Peerless Research Group surveyed 166 readers across manufacturing, warehousing, wholesale and retail. Fifty-two percent already use at least one robot type, up from 48 percent the prior cycle, while 32 percent plan a first or expanded deployment within three years.
Use cases are no longer limited to simple point-to-point transport. Order and case picking leads planned applications at 57 percent, followed by heavy-payload forked or tugger AMRs/AGVs (32 percent), sortation robots (31 percent) and collaborative in-aisle picking (30 percent). Autonomous case handling (29 percent), trailer loading and unloading (28 percent) and high-reach heavy payload work (24 percent) show that operators now expect robots at the dock and in the rack, not only in the center of the building.
Palletizing and depalletizing remain the top performance-improvement targets, reflecting persistent labor strain at inbound and outbound. The survey also notes faster go-lives than classic AGV tape or wire projects, consistent with AMR and ACR vendors selling software-defined fleets that map existing floors. Barriers remain: integration with WMS/WCS, change management, and maintenance skills.
A companion 10 September software survey in the same publication finds 25 percent of firms evaluating or upgrading WMS in two years, 21 percent WES, and 17 percent robotic control systems, with AI use rising from 19 percent to 26 percent. Together the two surveys describe 2026 as the year orchestration software, not just hardware headcount, determines whether a robot fleet actually raises picks per hour.