Topical Roundup: February 2026

In the past month, Automation.com has published some great pieces exploring 2026 predictions related to industrial automation and various industry segments. Explore below to learn about manufacturing resilience, physical AI, agentic autonomy and more. 

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Digital Transformation

The Three C’s of Digital Twins: How to Right-Size for Real Business Value: The “three Cs” of digital twins are complexity (does the ROI justify the investment), connectivity (can the data flow from the physical to the digital world?) and consequences (can the digital twin deliver ongoing insight?)

The Dawn of Agentic Autonomy: Defining the 2026 Smart Factory: We are witnessing a transition from passive automation to integrated, agentic autonomy — a shift that moves beyond simple programmed responses toward systems capable of independent reasoning and real-time optimization.

Automation and Control

Why Gray Factories Are the Next Era of Manufacturing in the US: The US the opportunity to implement a different strategy to play to its competitive strengths: building “gray factories.” As more funding from the Chips & Science Act supports advanced manufacturing initiatives, human-robot hybrid models could help the U.S. leapfrog China to dominate the next era of manufacturing.

Drive Actuators Are Replacing Traditional Harmonic Drive Reducer + Servo Motor Combination: In industrial automation, harmonic drive actuators are gradually replacing the traditional configuration of harmonic drive reducers combined with servo motors. Harmonic drive actuators are becoming the preferred solution because of their high positioning accuracy, compact and lightweight structure, high torque density and low maintenance cost.

Industrial Cybersecurity & Safety

Five Predictions for OT Operations and Cybersecurity in 2026: Let’s took a look at what industrial leaders should anticipate in 2026 and why identity-centric access and stronger IT/OT separation will become key to operational resilience. 2026 is poised to be the year when secure access stops merely supporting operations — and starts driving them.

Why You Need Physical Security Testing in Manufacturing: Manufacturing sites deal with on-the-ground threats — equipment theft, industrial espionage, unauthorized entry to control systems and even deliberate sabotage — all of which can severely impact operations. Physical security testing exposes these weaknesses before someone with harmful intent exploits them.

Operations and Management

Are You ETO?: Engineer to Order, or ETO, products help ensure customers get exactly what they want. Engineered To Order environments don’t have the same luxuries that come with repeatedly making the same product(s). Instead, their processes are a bit more complex and require an innovative, experienced team.  Let’s examine challenges, benefits and best practices.

10 Predictions of How MES & MOM Will Drive a New Era of Manufacturing Resilience in 2026: 2026 will be a year defined by excellence in manufacturing execution far outreaching previous years of experimentation. The manufacturers pulling ahead are those uniting MES and MOM into a single, data driven framework that links every production decision to enterprise strategy.

Process Automation & Control

Why Automation Platforms Must be Rebuilt, Not Incrementally Improved: Industrial automation is entering a decisive phase. Systems designed decades ago for isolated control environments are now expected to operate across converged IT and OT architectures, support data-driven decision making, scale globally and remain secure over long operational lifecycles. Incremental upgrades are no longer enough. What the industry needs is a fundamental rethink of what an automation platform must be.

Data Historians: Turning ‘Digital Landfills’ Into Strategic Assets: As part of the International Society of Automation’s “Ask the Automation Pros” series, ISA Fellows and others discuss what’s needed to turn process data into performance improvement.

Enterprise Architecture and Networks

Four Physical AI Predictions for 2026 (and Beyond): While robots are reactive today, tomorrow they will anticipate. Universal Robots outlines four predictions for physical AI, involving imitation learning, emerging mathematical techniques and task-specific AI applications.

AI Is Reshaping Frontline Manufacturing. Here’s What Comes Next: As the manufacturing industry faces the second-highest workforce retirement rate among industries, AI implementation has become critical as a means of recording irreplaceable knowledge from veterans before they retire.