Pannysylvania Magazine

WASHINGTON, D.C. – October 20, 2026 – The next major business opportunity in robotics may not be another robot.

As autonomous machines take on more valuable work, technology executive and entrepreneur Brandon Torres Declet believes attention will increasingly turn to the infrastructure that supports it. Verification, machine identity, data, payments, compliance, and coordination could become important categories as physical AI moves deeper into commercial operations.

Recent investment activity is beginning to reflect that shift. Konnex recently announced an $18.5 million raise to build what the company describes as a finance layer for physical AI. The announcement is one example of investment moving toward the systems surrounding autonomous machines, rather than focusing only on the machines themselves.

“We spent the first phase of robotics asking whether machines could do the work,” Declet said. “The next phase is going to include a different question: Can businesses trust, verify, and transact around the work those machines perform?”

For Declet, who has spent much of his career working across drones, robotics, autonomous systems, and emerging technology, that distinction could help shape an entirely new layer of the robotics industry.

The Robot Is Only One Part of the System

Much of the progress in robotics has understandably focused on improving the machine. Better sensors help robots understand their surroundings. Advances in computing and artificial intelligence allow them to make more decisions independently. Improvements in autonomy let machines perform increasingly complex tasks.

But commercial adoption involves more than completing the physical task.

Consider an autonomous robot conducting an industrial inspection. The robot may be able to navigate the site, inspect equipment, collect information, and identify potential problems with limited human involvement. Once the mission is complete, however, the business may still need to establish what was inspected, when the work occurred, what information was collected, and which system performed the task.

Those questions become more important when the work involves multiple organizations.

“The machine might be perfectly capable of doing the job while everything around that job is still handled through separate, manual processes,” Declet said. “As autonomy improves, I think more attention is going to move toward connecting machine activity with the systems businesses already use to establish identity, verify work, manage information, and complete transactions.”

Declet believes that shift could create opportunities well beyond robot manufacturing.

When Machine Activity Has Economic Consequences

The need for supporting infrastructure grows when the work autonomous systems perform has economic value.

A robot could inspect infrastructure, complete a delivery, map a site, collect requested information, or perform another contracted service. Today, people often remain involved in confirming that work, transferring information between systems, approving invoices, or initiating the next step in a business process.

As autonomous systems become more capable, some of those connections could become more automated.

The challenge is establishing enough confidence in the underlying activity.

Before a completed robotic task can reliably trigger another business process, organizations may need to know which machine performed the work, whether it had permission to do so, what conditions were satisfied, and whether the resulting information can be trusted.

“If machine activity is eventually going to trigger a payment or another meaningful business action, the standard cannot simply be that the robot says it finished,” Declet said. “There needs to be enough evidence for the parties involved to trust the event.”

The amount of verification required would depend on the work. A routine inventory task may require relatively little evidence. An inspection involving critical infrastructure, safety, insurance, or regulatory requirements could demand significantly more.

For Declet, the larger point is that greater autonomy will create new requirements outside the machine itself.

The Next Robotics Companies May Not Build Robots

That shift could also expand what it means to be a robotics company.

Some businesses will continue developing better robots, sensors, components, and autonomy systems. Declet expects another group of companies to emerge around the infrastructure that allows those machines to participate more effectively in commercial environments.

Machine identity could become one category. Verification could become another. Other opportunities may develop around payments, insurance, compliance, data management, fleet coordination, maintenance, and communication between autonomous systems.

“We naturally pay attention to the robot because it is the visible part of physical AI,” Declet said. “But when an industry matures, some of the most important businesses are often the ones building the infrastructure around the core technology.”

The recent Konnex funding announcement offers an early example of that broader idea. Rather than focusing on building another autonomous machine, the company is developing infrastructure intended to connect machine activity with financial systems.

Declet expects more experimentation around that intersection as autonomous systems perform a wider range of commercially valuable work.

Not every idea will become a major new category, and Declet cautions against assuming that every process surrounding robotics needs to be automated. Different industries will require different levels of verification, oversight, and human involvement.

The opportunity, he says, is to identify the places where supporting infrastructure removes a genuine barrier to adoption.

“The breakthrough does not always have to happen inside the robot,” Declet said. “Sometimes the technology becomes much more valuable because someone solves the problem around it.”

As physical AI moves from demonstrations and specialized deployments toward broader commercial use, Declet believes that distinction will become increasingly important. Building more capable autonomous machines remains essential. Building the systems that allow businesses to trust and use the work those machines perform may prove just as consequential.

About Brandon Torres Declet

Brandon Torres Declet is a technology executive, entrepreneur, board member, and advisor with more than 20 years of experience across drones, robotics, autonomous systems, aviation, defense technology, artificial intelligence, and emerging technology.

Declet founded the aerial intelligence company MEASURE and has held executive and board roles at public and private technology companies. His experience includes technology commercialization, company building, acquisitions, corporate governance, and strategic growth. Earlier in his career, he worked in national security and public policy, including roles with the New York Police Department’s Counter Terrorism Bureau and the U.S. Congress.

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