Four out of five U.S. manufacturing sites operate with no automation — a central finding of our mid‑2026 industrial coverage that shifts operational priorities: the challenge is no longer just buying robots, but preparing factory floors so they can actually benefit from them.
Technology in manufacturing: a glaring automation gap
The numbers are clear: 80% of U.S. sites have not deployed automation. This exposes a market where advanced solutions are arriving on terrain that has yet to adopt the previous generation. The automation gap is therefore not only technological, it is structural.
The real bottlenecks: OT data hygiene and cybersecurity, not budget
Contrary to the received wisdom that cost is the primary barrier to adoption, operations leaders point to more prosaic technical obstacles: operational data hygiene and OT network security. Without clean, structured data and hardened operational networks, modern automation systems cannot operate effectively.
