Stories from the Field: From Skepticism to Trust in the Warehouse

Earlier this year our team saw a warehouse manager stare at a robot the way you might eye a UFO. With pure skepticism. You could tell he’d been burned before.

I understood. 15+ years in this field, I’ve seen it all. Integration nightmares. Disrupted workflows. Expensive lessons. We knew they needed something different - and it made all the difference.

A different kind of rollout

Instead of a lengthy WMS integration or months of IT prep, we rolled out Carter™, Robust.AI’s collaborative robot, with zero complexity. In addition to seamless collaboration with people across picking, putaway and VAS in your fulfillment warehouses, this rollout meant no WMS integration necessary, no IT headaches, and no waiting for months to see real productivity gains.

The team got to lead the robot—not the other way around. And from day one, the robot learned the floor with vision-based navigation. It dodged boxes, avoided pickers and forklifts, and adapted like it belonged there all along.

Building trust lowers barriers to entry. 

By the end of the week, that skeptical manager had flipped.

He told me:

“For the first time, I feel like automation is working with us—not at us.”

Because we started small, the team had the chance to build trust with the technology. They saw productivity gains in real time—without disruption.

And later, when it came time to integrate fully, it was their choice. On their terms.

People first, and everything else follows.

That’s the power of automation that’s designed for people, not just processes.

Too often, technology promises the moon and delivers chaos. But when you flip the approach—putting workers first—you unlock something different: adoption that sticks, results that compound, and teams that actually want to use the tools you give them.

The most successful automation isn’t the flashiest—it’s the one that empowers your team to do their best work. If you’ve ever felt let down by automation that overpromised and underwhelmed, you’re not alone. There is a better way.

Start simple.

Build trust.

Let the results speak for themselves.