Industrial Next wants factory robots to switch tasks in minutes, not weeks
Industrial Next helps manufacturers automate complex, delicate tasks that have traditionally required human labor.
Key points
- Industrial Next builds AI robotic stations that can be retooled in minutes instead of weeks.
- The San Francisco startup announced a partnership with BMW Group Technology Office.
- Founders Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan previously worked at Tesla.
San Francisco-based startup Industrial Next presented on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, saying its AI-driven robotic stations can be retooled in minutes rather than weeks. The company builds self-contained stations powered by proprietary foundation models that connect vision, task context and motion.
Industrial Next announced on stage that it is partnering with BMW Group Technology Office to evaluate its AI-powered dexterous manipulation for manufacturing. The startup was founded in 2021 by Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan, both former Tesla employees.
Founders background
Pankau served as a lead electrical architect at Tesla before moving to Waymo. Pan led Tesla's autonomous factory efforts and later became chief architect at autonomous driving company Neolix.
The pair came up with the idea while working together at Tesla. Pankau said engineers there could design cars and self-driving systems but were stumped by factory equipment from the 1980s.
We ultimately want to take this to building a full car end-to-end without any human touching ever.
— Lukas Pankau
How the robots work
Traditional industrial robots are programmed for highly specific, repeatable tasks, so small process or product changes can cause failure or costly downtime. Industrial Next says its stations can be reconfigured, combined and redeployed across product lines, with new tasks taught through simulation and demonstration rather than hard-coded scripts.
Pankau said the robots practice in a high-fidelity virtual world that mimics real-world physics, letting them perform high-precision tasks almost without seeing the parts. He said some workstations already handle tasks manufacturers failed to automate for years, such as threading a delicate flex cable and snapping a tiny connector cap into place, though he did not disclose the customer.
