Sheridan, Wyoming – November 02, 2026 -- The global industrial automation market is valued at USD 266.7 billion in 2026 and will reach USD 410.3 billion by 2031, a CAGR of 9%, according to a new study by Wissen Research. The market is moving from isolated, hardware-oriented machine control toward connected, software-based production that combines control hardware, robotics, industrial software and real-time analytics.
Factories installed a record 603,000 industrial robots in 2025
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reports that installations rose 11% year on year, lifting the global operational stock to 5.079 million units. IFR forecasts a further 9% increase in 2026, to about 655,000 units.
Demand now extends beyond the car plant. In 2025, installations in metal and machinery grew 22%, while automotive and electronics each rose 10%. Collaborative robots accounted for 66,000 new installations, about 11% of the total.
China took 59% of global robot installations as domestic vendors gained share
China installed about 354,000 robots in 2025, 20% more than the year before. India installed nearly 10,500 units, up 15%, with annual installations growing an average of 27% between 2020 and 2025.
Chinese manufacturers supplied 55% of the robots installed in China in 2025, up from roughly 28% a decade earlier. That increases competitive pressure on established international vendors.
Cisco finds 61% of organizations already run AI in live industrial operations
In Cisco's 2026 State of Industrial AI study, 83% of respondents planned to raise AI spending. The use cases delivering results are predictive maintenance, process automation, automated quality inspection, logistics and energy forecasting.
Integration is the bottleneck. In the same study, 97% of respondents expected AI workloads to affect their industrial network requirements, and 51% anticipated higher connectivity and reliability requirements. Some 43% reported limited or no collaboration between IT and operational technology (OT) teams. Wissen Research sees opportunities in industrial networking, edge devices, real-time data infrastructure and digital twins alongside conventional automation hardware.
Only 21% of organizations have a full OT asset inventory, Honeywell survey shows
Honeywell's 2026 OT Cybersecurity Benchmark Report found that 88% of respondents called their cybersecurity programs mature. Respondents reported an average of 16.2 hours of downtime from their most significant incidents, with losses reaching up to USD 500,000 per hour.
The 2025 SANS ICS/OT Security Survey found that only 49% of organizations had detection capabilities designed for industrial control systems, and just 26% of that group rated them highly effective. Nearly half of incidents were detected within 24 hours, yet almost one in five took more than a month to remediate fully.
Upfront cost and validation requirements slow adoption
Replacing an old control system often means interrupting production, reconfiguring hardware, upgrading software and validating the result. Multi-site companies can face incompatible communication standards. Pharmaceutical and food producers may need significant validation before go-live, and smaller businesses can struggle to finance projects.
Against that, growth drivers include semiconductor capacity, electrified vehicle production, pharmaceutical traceability, food inspection and packaging, and energy optimization. Brownfield modernization is another driver: companies are replacing outdated programmable logic controllers and drives with connected platforms, without a complete plant renovation.
ABB's USD 5.5 billion Rotork bid leads four 2026 portfolio deals
In July 2026, ABB Ltd. agreed to acquire UK-based Rotork plc through a recommended all-cash offer valued at about USD 5.5 billion. The deal targets intelligent flow control, electric actuators and instrumentation.
Also in July, American Industrial Partners completed its purchase of Honeywell's Intelligrated and Transnorm businesses and combined them with Trew. The resulting warehouse automation provider generated over USD 1 billion in 2025 revenue.
City Electric Supply partnered with Siemens Digital Industries in July to expand its Industrial Automation Solutions division across North America. In September, Emerson Electric Co. announced a 3,500-square-meter service center in Qatar's Umm Alhoul Free Zone, which will include the region's first certified in-country flow calibration laboratory.
Wissen Research describes the market as moderately consolidated, with a few large multinationals competing alongside specialized technology providers. FANUC, Yaskawa, ABB and KUKA are named as key competitors in robotics and motion control.