Industrial Next, a San Francisco startup founded by two former Tesla engineers, says it can make factory automation far more flexible. Instead of reprogramming and retooling lines for each product change—a process that can take weeks or months—the company’s AI-driven robotic stations can be switched to new tasks in minutes. The system relies on proprietary foundation models that connect vision, task context, and motion, with robots trained in a high-fidelity simulated environment before deployment.
The startup presented its approach this week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 and announced a partnership with BMW Group Technology Office to evaluate its dexterous manipulation for manufacturing. Industrial Next says its stations are already used in making one of the world’s most popular smartphones, handling jobs like threading delicate flex cables and snapping connector caps into place—tasks the company claims manufacturers had long failed to automate. It also described a film-peeling station that strips protective film off camera modules at human speed with 100% accuracy, even on new phone models.
Co-founders Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan met at Tesla, where they were frustrated by factory equipment that could not keep up with advanced vehicle and self-driving technology. They later decided to rebuild manufacturing automation from scratch. The source for this article is a single TechCrunch report, so there are no independent or contrasting views to compare; the claims about performance and partnerships are as presented by the company and TechCrunch.