Forget Fancy—Robots Built for One Job Are Dominating the Market

At a time when artificial intelligence and robotics are changing the future of work, the market is making a critical shift. While we glamorize humanoid robots that do many things and fetishize their aesthetic interactions, investors are pouring millions (billions) into nonspecific robots — specialized bots that can reliably and efficiently do one thing exceptionally well. Not flashy with showmanship, these boxy, utilitarian devices could never be stars of the show, but their economic utility is making them stars of the automation world.

The Shift to Functionality

We're long familiar with the allure of humanoid robots — those sleek machines designed to mimic human movement and behavior. Despite great demos of flips, dances, or sophisticated coordination, there is still no prospect for widespread use of off-the-shelf humanoids in the field. However, they face environments where the environment is completely unpredictable, they lack enough data for training, and they produce products at high cost.

And on the other hand, specialized robots ship value immediately and in measurable terms. These are the machines, designed for certain industries and tasks, that are the best in logistics, healthcare, defense, and waste management. Whatever the industrial part hauling, medical supply transport, or equipment inspection robot, it’s built for a purpose, and there’s reason to believe it’s paying off.

Capital Follows Efficiency

During the first quarter of 2025, global robotics firms garnered $2.26 billion in funding, according to PitchBook. More than 70% of that investment went to task robots being developed, not humanoid prototypes. This trend tells us so much: the market values practicality over potential.

This trend is being seized upon by startups and by established players. Ati Motors in India and Diligent Robotics in the U.S. have filled a profitable niche meeting an immediate operational issue. The Sherpa Tug, the factory floor tow robot that can move over 1,000kg, is made by Ati Motors, for instance. These are the robots that have already cruised over 500,000 kilometers in real-world environments, serving world-class clients like Hyundai, Bosch, and Forvia.

Diligent Robotics has been able to make Moxi work for them in the healthcare sector in Austin, where the robot performs nonclinical tasks such as delivering lab samples and medications. 'By solving only one, very high-impact problem —in our case, robot perception—we’ve been able to become product-level profitable already,' says CEO Andrea Thomaz. It’s solid validation of the function-over-flash approach.

Why Specialized Robots Win

Three competitive elements are cost, deployment speed, and return on investment, which are key where specialized robots, with their small physical size, are concerned.

1. General-purpose humanoids cost between $50,000 and $200,000 per unit — their excessive cost stems from expensive components such as lidar sensors and advanced cameras. Task-specific robots, however, cost from $5,000 to $100,000 and can often be deployed with little to no customization or infrastructure changes.
2. This enables them to deploy at speed because they are largely designed for a single use case and therefore are produced much more quickly and need less training. As a result, companies can realize their productivity gains so much faster.
3. ROI Clarity: The businesses that multitask automation seems to fit with could easily measure the impact on operational efficiency, labor costs, and downtime. The ease with which we can quantify results makes it easier for investors and executives to justify further spending.

Technical Momentum

Specialized robots have also benefited from progress in chip technology. For example, Nvidia’s Orin NX chip makes edge processing possible so that robots can operate up to eight AI models locally without having to depend on cloud servers. This allows for significantly greater autonomy and speed — especially in highly disconnected environments — and thus increases intelligence to power in applications ranging from drone delivery and surveillance to automated cars, autonomous robots, and beyond.

For Ati Motors CEO Saurabh Chandra, this is a game changer. “With Nvidia's Orin NX, we could compactly pack many more AI models at the edge than we could previously,” he said. The outcome is a fleet of robots that can seamlessly work together in an array of ever-changing industrial settings.

Humanoid Robots: The Dream vs. Reality

Although general-purpose humanoids will still exist far into the long future, they are far from commercial viability. In car factories, companies like Figure AI are looking towards shipping 100,000 walking humanoid units within the next four years, but those robots are mostly stuck to controlled environments. The problem is to deal with real-world variability on the fly — something specialist robots are designed to avoid by forsaking the variety.

Additionally, humanoid robot training data is severely limited. Generative AI models (trained on terabytes of text and images) just aren’t going to cut it — physical robots have to learn by doing. Doing so requires massive amounts of time, resources, and human oversight.

Not surprisingly, even leaders in robotics, such as Marc Theermann of Boston Dynamics, are skeptical. 'True' general-purpose robots haven't really been invented yet … None of these companies claiming to have done so are probably over-promising and will underdeliver,' he says. The value of Spot, his company’s own product—a four-legged robot for industrial inspections—is in its targeted functionality rather than its broad capability.

Investment Strategy: Hedge and Focus

Adapting accordingly, venture capital firms are. Example: ViaBot’s trash-collecting machines are backed by the narrow utility of Era Ventures, while the gorilla of Figure AI, the humanoids, is also supported. “You’ll see a transition where there will be robots built for a task that will do something very useful, very cost-effectively. That’s very appealing,” explains partner Raja Ghawi. That’s going to get better; people are going to realize there’s a good reason to have a full humanoid.”

It was interesting that this dual-track investment approach was also indicative of a larger realization: that while the future may be made of humanoid robots, now is being built by more specialized robots already delivering value.

The Road Ahead

The era of automation becomes more mature and more focused, and robots become more specialized. Instead of working toward robots that can do human things, robots that can do one thing better than any human are the name of the game these days.

This isn’t eschewing innovation; it’s a strategic reorientation. With task-specific design, companies can solve present-day problems, build sustainable businesses, and deliver revenue.

In the coming years, specialized robots will attract capital and quickly scale as industries from healthcare to manufacturing look to improve operational efficiency and lower their reliance on human labor. Simple and powerful, the mantra is "function over flash.

But the future of robotics might not look like us—but it’ll be working for us.