🤖Economic Strain Hits Robots

Report: Robotics sector faces downturn amid economic challenges

Key Points 

• In the first half of 2024, the North American robotics market saw a 7.5% drop in orders and a 6.8% revenue decline.

• While OEM orders increased by 14.4%, automotive component manufacturers faced significant declines, with sales down 38.8%.

☕News - According to data from the automation advocacy group A3, the robotics sector, despite its popularity, has experienced a downturn.

In the first half of 2024, the North American robotics market saw declines in both sales and revenue. Orders for industrial robots dropped by 7.5% year-over-year, totaling 15,705 units, while revenue fell by 6.8%, reaching $982.83 million across the two quarters. The association attributes this decline to broader economic challenges faced by manufacturers.

A category-by-category analysis showed mixed results. The automotive sector, the biggest employer of industrial automation, experienced ups and downs. On the OEM side, order numbers increased by 14.4%, while revenue decreased by 12%. However, manufacturers of automotive components faced declines, with sales down 38.8% and revenue falling by 27.3%.

👨🏻‍💼What does an insider think? A3 President Jeff Burnstein expressed concerns about rising inflation and increased borrowing costs, which led to reduced spending on robotics and prompted many companies to delay significant investments. However, he also highlighted some positive trends, noting that demand for robotics in sectors like food, consumer goods, and life sciences remained strong due to the need for operational efficiency and workforce augmentation.

Burnstein pointed out that the life sciences sector saw a remarkable 47.9% increase in sales and an 86.7% surge in revenue, while the food and consumer goods sectors experienced even more substantial growth, with orders rising by 85.6% and revenue increasing by 56.2%.

He emphasized that the current slowdown should not be a cause for alarm, as an adjustment was expected after the surge in purchases during the pandemic. Despite the broader economic challenges, Burnstein believes that automation is essential for most industries, suggesting that the question is not if but when it will be adopted.

Adobe launches new tools to safeguard creative work from AI misuse

Key Points 

• Adobe’s new web app centralizes Content Credentials, enabling users to apply credits to all media types easily.

• Users can set generative AI preferences to protect their work from unauthorized AI training and usage.

👨🏻‍🎨News - Adobe is expanding its Content Credentials feature to make it easier for creatives to get credit for their work, identify AI-generated content, and protect their creations.  

They’re launching a free web app that will serve as a central hub for Adobe’s Content Credentials platform. It will integrate with Adobe's Firefly AI models as well as Photoshop, Lightroom, and other Creative Cloud apps that already support Content Credentials. More importantly, the hub will allow users to apply Content Credentials to any image, video, or audio file—not just those created with Adobe’s apps.

It will also give users the option to set generative AI preferences to safeguard their work from being used by or to train AI models. Although Adobe’s models only use licensed or public domain content, these protections are designed to work with other AI models, as long as the companies behind them support it.

Adobe states that these attribution and AI preference tags will be harder to remove, thanks to digital fingerprinting, invisible watermarking, and cryptographic metadata. Even if someone takes a screenshot of protected content, the Content Credentials can be restored. While not foolproof, this system adds an extra layer of difficulty for anyone trying to bypass these protections.

👨🏻‍💻What's more? Adobe is also making it easier to check for Content Credentials on websites that don’t display them, like Meta’s “AI Info” tags. The new Content Authenticity web app includes an inspect tool that can retrieve and show Content Credentials and editing history when available. Adobe is launching a beta Chrome extension that will allow users to inspect content directly on a webpage.

The Content Authenticity web app will launch in public beta in Q1 2025. It will require users to sign up for a free Adobe account but won’t need an active subscription to Adobe services.