Seven out of ten German employees hope that intelligent control of machines via voice commands or touchpads will make their work easier in the future. This is a result of the automatica Trend Index 2018 , for which the leading robotics and automation trade fair surveyed 1,000 employees nationwide, and 1,000 each in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the USA, China, and Japan. Six out of ten employees see benefits in the fact that machines could be able to work on their own in the future thanks to Artificial Intelligence. However, 71% of employees insist that AI has to be strictly controlled by law.

The use of robots controlled by artificial intelligence in close proximity to humans has noticeably increased . In its World Robotics Report 2017, the International Federation of Robotics forecasts further disproportionate growth. The current 1.3 million industrial robots are expected to increase to more than three million by 2020. In addition to the development in the field of artificial intelligence, the upcoming mobile standard 5G is supposed to expand the application options of Cobots. This radio technology will make small Cobots possible, whose “intelligence” can be accommodated far away from their housing, at the edge or in the Cloud for example.