Unimate and the birth of industrial robotics (1961)
George Devol's Unimate, a 4,000-pound robotic arm, was installed at General Motors' die-casting plant in Ewing, New Jersey—the first industrial robot deployed in a factory. It performed a single task: lifting and stacking hot metal parts that were dangerous for human workers. The machine cost the equivalent of $500,000 in today's dollars and could only follow pre-programmed magnetic drum instructions.
GM expanded robotic welding across its plants within five years. By 1969, the Stanford Arm introduced computer-controlled articulation, making robots more flexible.
Industrial robots became foundational to manufacturing. By 2024, over 4 million industrial robots were operating worldwide, but nearly all still required explicit programming for each specific task.
Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 represents the next transition: from robots that execute pre-programmed instructions to robots that reason about novel situations. Just as Unimate proved machines could handle dangerous factory work, foundation model robots are proving machines can handle unpredictable factory environments.