What are the main reasons that robotics companies and startups fail? Is it the technology or is it the business? Fresh Consulting analyzed significant industry case studies from Rethink Robotics to iRobot for their whitepaper "Why Robotics Companies Fail," and launched it on June 11 at a panel discussion moderated by James Dietrich, from Fresh Consulting, with guest speakers Aaron Prather, Senior Advisor for the Technology Research and Planning Team at FedEx Express; Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and startup accelerator advisor, and Eric Klein, Partner and Founder at Lemnos Labs. In a lively discussion, the speakers weighed in on what key factors for success or failure were most likely in their experience. Andra Keay believes that lack of business fundamentals is the most critical error a young company faces.

For the past several years, data has been the primary driver behind business growth. Understanding how consumers behave, why they make the decisions they do, and how to use that information to improve marketing is key to a business's success. To say that AI will be able to improve our ability to interpret and utilize data is a vast understatement. Currently, data analysis is done by a person reasoning through data, an automated program that provides us with concise information, or some combination of the two. The big leap with AI is the emergence of software that can perform both tasks as a simultaneous process: automated reasoning.