Industrial Next partners with BMW on AI factory robots

San Francisco startup Industrial Next announced a partnership with the BMW Group Technology Office to evaluate its AI-powered dexterous manipulation technology for vehicle manufacturing. Unveiled at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, the company builds self-contained robotic workstations that rely on proprietary foundation models to unite computer vision, task context, and physical motion. This architecture enables factories to reconfigure assembly lines in minutes instead of the weeks or months required by traditional retooling and hard-coded programming.

Founded in 2021 by former Tesla engineers Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan, Industrial Next developed its platform to solve persistent industrial bottlenecks. The system addresses the physical data scarcity in robotics by training models inside a high-fidelity simulation engine that replicates real-world physics. Rather than relying on rigid scripts, the workstations learn new assembly skills virtually, allowing them to carry out delicate, high-precision actions without prior physical part exposure.

The company’s robotic stations are already deployed in consumer electronics manufacturing to produce a major smartphone. These systems handle intricate tasks, such as threading delicate flex cables and snapping tiny connector caps into place, which had long stumped traditional automation. In specialized stations, the AI-driven robots peel protective film off camera modules and buttons at or above human speed with 100% accuracy, even when transferred to unseen product lines.

For industrial practitioners, moving from rigid automation to simulation-based foundation models drastically cuts costly downtime and simplifies line redeployment. By permitting rapid adaptation across product iterations, manufacturers can handle complex physical assemblies without sacrificing speed or precision. Industrial Next plans to expand these capabilities beyond consumer electronics toward complete end-to-end vehicle manufacturing.