Beyond the robot hype: What It takes to make robotics work in business

Kacper Nowicki, co-founder of Nomagic and former Google engineer, on why 99% reliability isn't good enough, and what it takes to deploy robots that businesses can actually depend on.

In this episode, we explore:

  • Why robotics demos can be misleading; and what real-world reliability demands.
  • How robots learn to handle the unexpected, from stuck-together products to unpredictable warehouse conditions.
  • Why data collected across an entire robot fleet can become a powerful competitive advantage.
  • The business case for warehouse automation, including ROI, labour costs and extended operating hours.
    Where robotics delivers value today; and how businesses can start their automation journey.

Humanoid robots dancing and doing backflips might dominate your feed, but the real robotics revolution is happening somewhere less glamorous: inside warehouses, where robots are already picking, packing and sorting orders at scale.

In this episode of Future Bytes, host Magnus Oxenwaldt sits down with Kacper Nowicki, co-founder of Nomagic, to explore what it really takes to turn robotics from an impressive demo into a reliable, commercially viable business.

After helping build Google Cloud and spending years at the intersection of technology and infrastructure, Kacper made the leap into robotics to tackle one of the biggest challenges in the physical world: automating repetitive manual work.

Together, they unpack why reliability matters more than viral videos, how Nomagic’s “Library of Chaos” helps robots learn from real-world failures, and why a robot-as-a-service model could make automation more accessible to warehouse operators.

The takeaway? The future of robotics isn’t just about building machines that can do amazing things. It’s about building systems that work consistently, solve real problems and make economic sense.

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