Kateryna Portmann of ANYbotics discusses growing up in the shadow of a major global disaster and how this has influenced her view of security in the field of robotics.
“I was born in Ukraine in 1986, 100km from Pripyat, the year of Chernobyl,” he explained. Kateryna Portmansenior product manager at ANYbotics and co-leader of the Swiss Chapter of Women in Robotics.
He said, “That’s important to me. Chernobyl represents a lot of technical design errors, human misjudgment and governance failures. It shaped the way I think about complex systems.
“When I enter an industrial environment and see how much it still depends on manual inspection, I think about the accumulation of risk. Robots, done well, reduce the dependence on perfect human behavior in imperfect areas. So, what excites me the most is not the robot itself, its prevention. The detection of anomalies. The reduction of exposure. The creation of systems that work before failure increases.”
For Portmann, in terms of scope, “we are past the ‘wow phase’ of robotics”, where it is enough to demonstrate that a robot can walk, scan and navigate automatically. In the midst of global change, now, consumers are looking for evidence, such as full-time numbers, integrated roadmaps and cybersecurity documents.
He said, “That change changes everything. I believe that 2026 will be the year of sorting. Many robotics companies used pilots in 2024-2025. This year, those pilots must convert to limited shipments. If they don’t, the funding will tighten and consolidate. Not everyone will survive. That’s not how hopeless the industrial market is.”
After spending years working across Asia, Portmann has seen what he calls hyper-speed scaling, where shipping decisions happen very quickly. However, he warned of potential risks as security structures and compliance processes struggle to keep pace with innovation.
He said, “That’s why I’m really happy now to build robots in Switzerland, where engineering rigor, certification and risk management are taken seriously from day one.”
He added, “I’ve been inside an aluminum plant where the heat takes away protective clothing in minutes. I’ve stood in a cement place where the dust fills the air constantly, you can feel it in your throat after a few hours. These are not places designed for long-term human exposure.”
When I hear fear about robots ‘taking jobs’ I think of those places. A better question is, should people face that risk every day?
“In one facility, early detection of the malfunction prevented a shutdown that would have cost millions. robots vehicles and interprets test data. People have moved up the value chain.”
Robots are revolutionizing STEM
And it’s not just safety and compliance that is being transformed by the advancement of robotics, the entire STEM space is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Portmann explained that “robots take away the tension’.
He said, “In the lab, the AI model works well. In the energy industry, the lens gets dusty. Wi-Fi goes down. The floor vibrates. The lights change. This is where theory meets reality. That’s why robots force true interdisciplinary collaboration. Mechanical engineers must understand the constraints of AI. AI engineers must understand cyber-hardware sensor groups must understand cyberdesign sensor groups. environment.”
As a result, education must improve to show the new reality. Portmann has seen firsthand how unprepared senior leaders can be when making physical AI decisions. He recommended that it should continue slowly, as formal education programs are not only for administrators, but also for teachers and children. “We need to teach systems thinking, ethics and human-machine interaction early on, not as an afterthought.”
He finds that, “robots are entering a critical phase” and 2026 is the marker to test resilience. He believes that many organizations will merge and disappear, as 2027 is set to reshape the landscape structurally.
Portmann said, “But despite the competitive pressure, this is one of the most exciting industries to work in, because the stakes are real.
“I’ve felt the heat of aluminum production. I’ve breathed the dust of cement factories. I was born in the shadow of a nuclear disaster. For me, robots are not about replacing people. It’s about protecting them and building systems that are responsible enough to trust them in places where human error is very costly.”
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