After 20 years of RoboBusiness, Arrowfly rebrands event as Robotics Summit & Expo West

The conference and expo sharpens its focus on bringing physical AI from development through commercial deployment, complementing the East Coast flagship summit.

CLEVELAND, Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Arrowfly, an award-winning B2B media and marketing company, today announced that RoboBusiness, a leading robotics industry event for the past 20 years, is being rebranded as Robotics Summit & Expo West, a conference and expo dedicated to the design, deployment, and scaling of commercial robots and businesses. The first event under the new name will be in October 2027.

The timing reflects how the industry has matured. Many robotics companies have moved past the prototype stage, shipping real products into factories, warehouses, and other sites. The questions that define their work are no longer only technical. They are about design for manufacturing, bringing products to market, implementation, managing growing fleets, and providing service and support. Robotics Summit & Expo West will help industry professionals meet increasing demand for intelligent systems across sectors.

"The robotics industry has matured, and the hardest problems have grown with it," said Steve Crowe, executive editor of The Robot Report and chair of the Robotics Summit & Expo. "For 20 years, RoboBusiness brought this community together. Robotics Summit & Expo West will serve that community by sharing lessons from industry leaders on how to move from a pilot that works to a product deployed across multiple sites and building a business that can support it."

What Robotics Summit & Expo West covers. The program is organized around the questions that define the post-prototype stage of a robotics company:

• Designing for the real world: This includes component sourcing, quality assurance, and reliable supply chains. Laboratory and demonstration models must be ruggedized for actual applications. They must be built for ease of manufacturing, management, and maintenance.
• Deployment at scale: What changes when a robot moves from a controlled pilot to multiple live sites, including integration, fleet management, remote monitoring, and autonomous operations in increasingly unstructured environments.
• Go-to-market and commercial strategy: How robotics companies are responding to market demand and structuring pricing, sales, and channel strategies for products that combine hardware, software, and services.
• Field data and product decisions: How real-world performance data flows back into product iteration and AI model evolution. Ongoing service and support, whether directly or through partners, is also key to demonstrating a return on investment.
• Investment and growth: How investors evaluate robotics companies, and how founding teams can build businesses that last.

The conference program includes keynotes with industry and thought leaders; sessions focused on the latest technical and business topics, insightful panel discussions, and a curated expo floor. Attendees can learn from the founders, operators, and investors who are shaping the future of robotics.

One mission. Two conversations. The rebrand clarifies Arrowfly's robotics event portfolio. Robotics Summit & Expo Boston (June 2–3, 2027, John B. Hynes Convention Center), the East Coast show, focuses on the core technical and engineering challenges of building robotic systems. Robotics Summit & Expo West focuses on scaling the product and the company behind it. Together, the two events serve the full lifecycle of designing, building, and bringing a robotics product to market.

"Deployment does not end the development process. It changes who is asking the questions," said Amanda Buehner, senior vice president of sales & strategy, engineering, at Arrowfly. "The engineer designing a new mobile robot and the operations leader managing robots across a warehouse network are both essential to this industry. They need different conversations. That is what the Robotics Summit & Expo lineup now provides."

Event details. Registration is still open for RoboBusiness 2026 at robobusiness.com. Robotics Summit & Expo West takes place in October 2027. The dates and location will be announced in the coming weeks. Industry professionals interested in attending or speaking can join the interest list.

Robotics hardware, software, and solution providers looking to reach the engineers, product leaders, and executives scaling robotics can learn about sponsorship and exhibit opportunities by contacting Arrowfly's robotics team.

About Arrowfly

Arrowfly is a live and digital B2B destination serving professionals across the engineering, healthcare, food, retail, and hospitality sectors. Across 40+ brands, the company delivers trusted journalism, original content, live and digital events, video, and demand generation programs to the decisionmakers shaping their industries. Powered by Clara, Arrowfly's proprietary performance platform, partners get real-time visibility into audience engagement, lead quality, and campaign ROI. The company is backed by an established reputation for editorial independence and credibility across the markets it serves. For more information, visit arrowfly.com.

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Annie Wissner
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SOURCE Arrowfly