To better understand this evolution, Robot Magazine spoke with Lucas Goumarre, founder of Korben For People, a French company specializing in multi-brand robotic fleet management software. Its ambition: to become the operating system for service robots deployed in European companies.

“We want to make service robotics accessible and sustainable”

For Lucas Goumarre, robotics should not be seen only as a technological achievement, but as a practical tool serving field teams.

“Korben For People is the operating system for service robotic fleets. We are developing a software platform capable of integrating robots from the world’s leading brands into a single interface, allowing our clients to manage everything from one screen.”

The company promotes a “hardware-agnostic” approach, a positioning that remains relatively rare in the market. In practical terms, this means that clients are not locked into a single robot brand.

“Fleets will evolve over time, and manufacturers will change as well. Our role is to provide a stable and independent software layer that protects clients’ investments over the long term.”

This vision is mainly aimed at field operators: cleaning companies, hypermarkets, logistics warehouses and supply chain players.

A SaaS model based on connected robots

Korben For People is primarily based on a B2B SaaS model. The company currently charges around €150 excluding VAT per robot per month for the use of its fleet management platform.

“Each robot connected to our OS generates recurring revenue. This is what structures the scalability of our model.”

At the same time, the company also supports clients with hardware deployment through multi-brand resale and Robot-as-a-Service offers.

This market evolution is also part of the rise of the Robot-as-a-Service model, where companies now prefer monthly subscriptions rather than heavy CAPEX investments. This model accelerates the adoption of service robots in cleaning, logistics and retail, while making it easier to deploy fleets across multiple sites.

But the core of the strategy remains clearly software-driven.

“We are not a manufacturer. We are a platform that makes manufacturers interoperable.”

Today, the company reports around 250 robots deployed and managed entirely through its platform, with a presence in France, Belgium, Spain and Germany.

Mass retail, cleaning and logistics: the sectors accelerating adoption

Three major markets currently concentrate Korben For People’s activity.

The first is food retail, where cleaning robots are gradually becoming the norm in hypermarkets and supermarkets.

The second concerns professional cleaning companies, which use these technologies at their own clients’ sites.

Finally, supply chain and logistics represent a major growth area, particularly for warehouse cleaning and automated internal delivery.

According to Lucas Goumarre, the market is now entering an industrialization phase.

“When 90% of a hypermarket’s floors are cleaned by robots, we are no longer in experimentation. We are in production.”

Robot cybersecurity is becoming a strategic issue

One of the most interesting aspects of Korben For People’s vision concerns cybersecurity. It is still a relatively under-discussed topic in the world of service robotics, but it could quickly become unavoidable.

“Today, many companies still consider robots as non-critical equipment. Yet these machines constantly collect data: images, maps, operational flows…”

To address these challenges, the company emphasizes a sovereign approach: data hosting in France, native GDPR compliance, encrypted exchanges and preparation for European NIS2 requirements.

“Our role is to remove cyber and data risk from the hardware choice.”

This vision could become decisive in the coming years, as foreign robots become increasingly present in sensitive European environments.

AI will transform robotic fleet management

For Lucas Goumarre, the next revolution will not only concern the robots themselves, but above all the way fleets are managed through artificial intelligence.

Predictive maintenance, automatic route optimization, computer vision, self-learning routes — all these functions require a software layer capable of analyzing an entire multi-brand robotic fleet.

“Manufacturers cannot provide this cross-functional intelligence on their own. This is exactly what we are building.”

A market shift toward open platforms

Through this approach, Korben For People illustrates a deeper trend in the robotics market: the shift from the “robot product” to the “robotics platform.”

This change is comparable to what IT experienced twenty years ago with the industrialization of information systems.

For companies, the challenge will soon no longer be only to choose a high-performing robot, but to know how to manage hundreds of machines in a centralized, secure and intelligent way.

And in this new battle, software may well become more strategic than the hardware itself.

FAQ – Korben For People and robotic fleet management

Cet article Interview with Lucas GOUMARRE, CEO of Korben For People est apparu en premier sur Robot Magazine.

This year marks a clear break from that trajectory. In 2026, robotics is no longer advancing incrementally. It is changing scale.

This shift is not driven by a single breakthrough, but by the convergence of artificial intelligence, embedded computing, simulation, labor shortages, and platform standardization. Robotics is moving beyond factory cells and entering the real world warehouses, hospitals, farms, construction sites, and public spaces.

For Robot Magazine, 2026 stands out as a pivotal year, comparable to the rise of cloud computing in the 2010s or the smartphone revolution in the early 2000s.

A Technology Long Limited by Its Own Constraints

Until recently, most industrial robots operated under strict conditions:

• fixed environments

• repetitive tasks

• deterministic programming

• limited perception

• high integration costs

Robots excelled at repetition but struggled with variability. A change in lighting, object shape, workflow, or layout often required costly reprogramming or system downtime.

This rigidity kept robotics largely confined to large-scale manufacturing, particularly automotive and electronics. Small and medium-sized enterprises, logistics, healthcare, agriculture, and construction remained largely manual.

The promise of robotics was clear but its reach was narrow.

What is happening in robotics is not
a technological miracle, but the
convergence of AI, computing power,
economics, and real-world constraints.

Artificial Intelligence Turns Robots into Decision-Making Systems

The first driver behind robotics’ change of scale is the maturation of artificial intelligence.

Modern robots are no longer just executing predefined trajectories. They are increasingly capable of:

• perceiving complex environments

• interpreting visual and sensor data

• understanding high-level instructions

• planning actions dynamically

• adapting to uncertainty

Multimodal AI models combining vision, language, force feedback, and motion allow robots to reason within constraints. This does not mean robots “think” like humans, but they can now make context-aware decisions instead of blindly following scripts.

This shift transforms robots from automated machines into physical AI agents, capable of operating in environments that were previously considered too unpredictable.

Embedded Computing Redefines Autonomy

Equally important is the rise of high-performance embedded computing.

Thanks to new generations of processors and AI accelerators, robots can now perform complex inference directly on board. This enables:

• real-time perception and decision-making

• low-latency control loops

• reduced dependence on cloud connectivity

• improved reliability and safety

• better data sovereignty

Robots no longer need external PCs or centralized servers to function intelligently. They have become edge systems, capable of operating autonomously even in remote or critical environments.

This is a fundamental shift. Intelligence is no longer centralized it is distributed across fleets of machines.

Robots Enter Unstructured, Human-Centric Environments

Robotics is changing scale because robots are no longer designed only for structured spaces.

Alongside traditional industrial arms, we now see:

• autonomous mobile robots navigating busy warehouses

• collaborative robots working safely next to humans

• service robots operating in hospitals and hotels

• agricultural robots adapting to natural terrain

• inspection and maintenance robots in infrastructure

• humanoid robots designed for human-built environments

The defining feature of these robots is not their form factor, but their adaptability. They operate in spaces built for humans, not redesigned for machines.

This marks a major philosophical shift: instead of forcing the world to adapt to robots, robots are adapting to the world.

Labor Shortages Accelerate Adoption

Beyond technology, economics plays a decisive role.

Across industries and regions, companies face:

• aging workforces

• labor shortages in physically demanding jobs

• high turnover rates

• declining interest in repetitive or hazardous tasks

In logistics, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, and sanitation, automation is no longer about productivity alone. It is about operational continuity.

Robotics becomes a necessity rather than an optimization tool. In many cases, robots are not replacing workers they are filling positions that no longer attract human labor.

This structural shift is one of the strongest accelerators of large-scale robotic deployment.

Robotics may be less visible than
consumer AI, but its transformation
is deeper, slower and far more structural.

Platform Standardization Fuels the Ecosystem

Another key factor behind robotics’ change of scale is platform convergence.

The robotics sector has long been fragmented, with proprietary hardware, software, and integration methods. That fragmentation is now giving way to:

• shared operating systems and middleware

• common simulation and development tools

• standardized interfaces between robots and IT systems

• cloud-edge hybrid architectures

This standardization reduces development costs, shortens deployment cycles, and lowers barriers to entry for new players. It also allows skills, software, and best practices to transfer across platforms.

Robotics is beginning to resemble modern computing: modular, updateable, and ecosystem-driven.

From Individual Robots to Robotic Infrastructure

Perhaps the most important shift is conceptual.

Robots are no longer treated as isolated machines. Companies now think in terms of:

• robot fleets

• centralized supervision

• orchestration layers

• predictive maintenance

• digital twins

• continuous learning systems

A robot deployed today improves tomorrow through shared data, software updates, and collective learning across fleets. Value increasingly lies in software, data, and integration not just hardware.

Robotics is becoming an infrastructure layer, similar to IT systems or cloud platforms.

Challenges Remain and They Are Significant

Despite this change of scale, robotics still faces real obstacles:

• high upfront investment costs

• cybersecurity risks

• regulatory and safety compliance

• ethical and social concerns

• workforce adaptation and training

Technology is advancing faster than organizational readiness. Deployment success depends not only on engineering, but also on change management, regulation, and human acceptance.

The challenge is no longer whether robots can perform tasks but how societies and industries integrate them responsibly.

2026: A Pivotal Year

What makes this year different is not hype, but alignment.

Technology, economics, and societal needs are converging. Robotics is expanding beyond pilot projects and isolated use cases into scalable, repeatable deployments across sectors.

Manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and public services are all being reshaped by robotic systems that are more autonomous, flexible, and intelligent than ever before.

This shift is irreversible.

A Quiet but Structural Transformation

Robotics may not dominate headlines like consumer AI, but its impact is deeper and more structural. The change of scale we are witnessing this year reflects the maturation of robotics as a foundational technology.

Robots are no longer futuristic promises. They are becoming reliable, adaptable tools embedded in everyday operations.

For Robot Magazine, 2026 marks the moment when robotics transitions from a specialized industrial solution to a cross-sector infrastructure, reshaping how work is performed, how services are delivered, and how physical systems interact with digital intelligence.

The key question is no longer if robotics will scale but how quickly industries and societies will adapt to this new reality.

FAQ – Why Robotics Is Changing Scale in 2026

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