Bessemer’s top predictions peg a coming “ChatGPT moment” for robotics, with a clear emphasis on data-rich, full-stack players winning and a small cohort of fewer than 50 major robotics firms dominating the landscape.

They forecast roughly 50x growth in robotics over the next decade and up to 100,000x more robots on Earth within 10–20 years, stressing that data access is a critical bottleneck and that defense robotics will drive the biggest exits.

Geopolitical and strategic implications are front and center, as robotics could influence modern warfare and national concerns grow over reliance on technology from a single region.

Industry experts warn reliability and capability remain major hurdles, with real-world data gaps and longer-than-expected timelines for general-purpose robotics, suggesting gradual deployment and improvement.

China dominates humanoid robotics, shipping roughly 90% of humanoid robots in 2025, with the majority of humanoid robotics companies headquartered there.

The report argues robotics investment is structurally underfunded relative to software, with far fewer large funding rounds despite a larger and faster-growing market.