On May 27, Robotics Summit & Expo 2026 opens at the Thomas M. Menino Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston — the largest two-day conference in the United States for commercial robotics developers. Over 6,000 attendees are expected, with more than 50 sessions across tracks on AI, enabling technologies, healthcare, and logistics robotics. The event is organized by The Robot Report.
The headline programme item for the humanoid industry is the keynote panel «The State of Humanoids» on May 27. The lineup: Alberto Rodriguez, director of robot behavior for Atlas at Boston Dynamics; Pras Velagapudi, CTO at Agility Robotics; Aaron Prather, director of robotics and automation systems programs at ASTM International (international standards organization); Al Makke, head of humanoid robotics in North America at Schaeffler (German auto parts supplier); Mike Nielsen, CMO at RealSense (depth-sensing). The panel’s stated brief is to assess what humanoids can realistically do in factories and warehouses today, without marketing rhetoric. The opening keynote earlier that day is by Mikell Taylor, director of robotics strategy at General Motors. The closing keynote on May 28 is by Noland Arbaugh, the first person to receive a Neuralink implant — the robotics connection is non-obvious at first glance, but the implant was placed by Neuralink’s R1 surgical robot, an instance of precision surgical robotics.
In parallel with Boston, Humanoids Summit Tokyo 2026 takes place on May 28–29 in Tokyo — covered separately. Two major industry gatherings in the same week effectively divide the stage geographically: Boston covers commercial robotics broadly with humanoids as one track among many; Tokyo runs a narrow humanoid programme weighted toward the Japanese and Western segments. The overlapping dates mean US companies — Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Apptronik — face a real choice about which event to send senior leadership to.