Top Robotics Conferences to Attend in 2027

If you're building in robotics or physical AI, the conference calendar in 2027 is crowded, but not all of it is actually for you. Some events are dedicated robotics conferences where every session and every attendee is focused on robots in the real world. Others are giant, general technology conferences where robotics is one track competing for attention alongside crypto, gaming, healthtech, and enterprise software.

Here's a guide to the robotics conferences worth knowing in 2027, and how to choose the one that fits what you're building.

The distinction that matters most

A dedicated robotics conference points its whole program, stage, and attendee list at physical AI and robotics. A broad tech conference covers the entire tech landscape and includes robotics as one theme among dozens. The broad events are worth attending if you want a wide survey of everything in tech, but if you're specifically building physical AI, most of the program won't be for you. Below, the 2027 landscape split into both.

Dedicated robotics & physical AI conferences

These are the events built specifically for the robotics community.

1. AUTONOMOUS, San Francisco An independent media platform and conference focused entirely on the future of robotics and physical AI, built to bring together the leaders driving that future to collaborate. AUTONOMOUS is single-minded about one thing: physical AI and robots in the real world. The 2026 edition brought 600+ attendees and 60+ speakers across four robotics-focused tracks, the physical AI frontier, the humanoid moment, building and deploying robots, and where the money is going. Speakers included Russ Tedrake (CEO, Walden Robotics), Deepak Pathak (Co-founder & CEO, Skild AI), James Kuffner (CTO, Symbotic), and Jamie Shotton (Chief Scientist, Wayve). It also draws a strong investor presence, connecting founders with the capital backing physical AI. AUTONOMOUS returns to San Francisco in 2027. Best for: anyone building, funding, or deploying physical AI who wants depth over breadth. Join the 2027 waitlist →

2. Humanoids Summit The one event built entirely around a single form factor: the humanoid. Its program centers on humanoid platforms and the hard problems specific to them, like bipedal locomotion, dexterous hands and whole-body control, plus the companies betting on human-shaped robots. It runs editions in Silicon Valley, Seoul and Tokyo. Best for: teams building humanoids specifically, or tracking the humanoid race internationally.

3. RoboBusiness A long-running event centered on the commercial side of deploying robots. Its audience skews commercial, more hardware suppliers and integrators, and fewer engineers from OEMs, which can be a limitation if you're looking to reach technical decision-makers. Best for: the business and commercial side of robotics deployment.

4. Actuate A robotics and AI event with an engineering and developer flavor, centered on robotics tooling and infrastructure. Worth noting it's run by a vendor (an observability and data-management platform), so its programming naturally skews toward tooling rather than the full breadth of the field. Best for: engineers and developers working close to the robotics tooling stack

5. Robotics Summit & Expo A robotics engineering event rooted in the Massachusetts robotics ecosystem. It draws a lot of students and hardware suppliers, with fewer OEM decision-makers, and its focus is robotics engineering broadly rather than physical AI specifically. Best for: the New England robotics and academic community.

Broad tech conferences where robotics is one track

These events are massive and influential, but robotics shares the stage with everything else. If you go, you'll spend a lot of the program outside your field.

1. CES (Las Vegas). The world's largest general technology trade show, spanning AI, digital health, gaming, sustainability, vehicle tech, and more. Its robotics presence leans toward press, media moments, and flashy robot demos rather than technical content or the decision-makers actually building in the field. Great for consumer-tech spectacle and coverage; less so for deep robotics substance.

2. NVIDIA GTC (San Jose). A major AI and accelerated-computing conference with real robotics content, but built around NVIDIA's own ecosystem, its platform, GPUs, and partners rather than a neutral view of the field. Great if you're deep in the NVIDIA stack; narrower otherwise.

3. TechCrunch Disrupt (San Francisco). A major startup and venture event. Its 2026 "Real World AI" stage touched on robotics, but as organizers noted, that's one stage among many spanning fintech, security, and infrastructure. Excellent for fundraising and startup networking; not a robotics-first room.

4. Web Summit (Lisbon). One of the world's largest tech conferences. Robotics sits inside an "AI in the Physical World" theme, nested within a broader AI track. Huge scale; robotics is a small slice.

5. SXSW (Austin). A culture-and-tech festival spanning film, music, and innovation. Robotics surfaces occasionally; it isn't the point of the event.

6. ICRA. The leading academic robotics conference. Deeply technical and research-focused, excellent for academia and cutting-edge research, but oriented toward papers and scholarship rather than commercial builders and deployment.

Which should you attend?

Three questions decide it.

• What are you building? The more specific your robotics focus, the more a dedicated event pays off.
• Who do you need in the room? A focused conference concentrates robotics founders, investors, and customers, rather than scattering them among 100,000 people from every industry.
• Breadth or depth? A broad show surveys all of tech; a dedicated robotics conference keeps every session on-topic.

If you want the panorama of everything in tech, the big general events are worth the trip. But if you're building in physical AI and want a room where robotics is the event, not a half-day track inside it, a dedicated robotics conference is the better use of your time.

The bottom line

2027 has robotics events for every need. If you want a conference focused entirely on physical AI and robots in the real world with the founders, engineers, and investors actually building them, AUTONOMOUS returns to San Francisco in 2027.

Join the AUTONOMOUS 2027 waitlist → waitlist members get first access.