Interact Analysis

Amazon recently launched Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS), a new platform opening its freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and parcel delivery capabilities to external businesses, including companies operating entirely outside Amazon's retail marketplace. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now Amazon's most profitable business segment, showing how internal infrastructure can evolve into a major external platform.

The US machinery market is entering a new investment cycle as new orders are once again growing faster than shipments. This is extending lead times and growing backlog, a pattern that has historically preceded periods of stronger machinery production and capital investment. After a relatively flat period during 2023 and 2024, inflation-adjusted machinery orders accelerated significantly throughout 2025 and into 2026.

Questions about the updated robot safety standard ISO 10218 are becoming increasingly common in the robotics industry. Central to the discussion are CE certification requirements in Europe, as ISO 10218 is the key safety standard for industrial robots under the CE marking framework. In this insight, we discuss the regulatory direction of the new standard, differences in manufacturer readiness, and potential implications for the European and US robotics markets.

Our research is not intended to be static and used merely for reading and informing. It's live, current, constantly changing, and evolving; much like the industry sectors we analyze. Interact Analysis reports provide companies and individuals with the tools they need to take action and make better decisions. This article examines some of the many ways you can take market intelligence and turn it into action.

During 2025's ProMat and LogiMAT industry shows, automated packaging began to move to the forefront of the warehouse automation conversation. Automated packaging systems were becoming more visible, not only through larger booths and increased presence on the show floor, but also in early signs of collaboration between packaging vendors and the broader warehouse ecosystem.

The global industrial robot market started to recover in 2025, growing 5.1% in shipments and 0.8% in revenue, driven primarily by Asian markets. Over the next five years, the market is projected to grow steadily as robots are adopted across more manufacturing processes and emerging industries, and as AI-related applications generate new sources of demand.

The collaborative robot market is entering a phase of sustained but uneven growth. Our latest Collaborative Robots - 2026 report points to a market that is maturing in some respects, particularly pricing, but volatile in terms of regional and application demand. Collaborative robot shipments reached nearly 58,000 units in 2025, having grown 14.5% over the year before. Shipments are forecast to more than double over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030.

Our Forklift and Pallet Handling Voice of Market study is a twice-yearly quantitative + qualitative study of more than 300 executives and facility managers involved in making forklift and pallet handling buying decisions across multiple facility types and company sizes. The inaugural edition was published in April 2026.

Data centers have undoubtedly been one of the most interesting and fastest-growing end market for low voltage AC drives over the past few years. Low voltage AC drive revenues sold to the data center sector exceeded $200 million in 2025, a year-on-year growth of 12.5%. We predict that the market will grow annually at a pace of 8.3% between 2025 and 2030, indicating solid potential for sustained expansion.

Energy efficiency has been a primary driver of innovation in low-voltage AC drives. This has been the case throughout the transition from thyristors to IGBTs, during widespread adoption of vector control, and now in a new phase of innovation centered on higher switching frequencies, power density, and system-level efficiency. Each pivotal breakthrough has been enabled by advancements in underlying power semiconductor devices.