# BMW to evaluate Industrial Next robots, which promise to reconfigure a line in minutes

> The San Francisco start-up showed its reconfigurable robotic workstations on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, where it announced the partnership with the carmaker.

Published on 2026-10-14

According to TechCrunch, Industrial Next announced a partnership with the BMW Group Technology Office on stage. It covers the evaluation of the company's AI-driven fine manipulation in an industrial setting.

The company builds autonomous robotic stations based on its own AI models. According to the company, a production line can be reconfigured in minutes rather than several weeks, without conventional programming.

According to co-founder Lukas Pankau, some of its stations are already used to make one of the world's best-selling smartphones. The customer is not named. The robots, for example, thread a fragile flexible cable and snap on a tiny connector cap.

## Sources

- [TechCrunch (Robotics)](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/industrial-next-wants-factory-robots-to-switch-tasks-in-minutes-not-weeks/)

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