At 47G’s annual Zero Gravity Summit, Utah’s gathering place for leaders in aerospace and defense, Palladyne AI stood out as one of the companies quietly reshaping how artificial intelligence meets robotics. The Salt Lake City-based firm is helping both manufacturers and the defense sector reimagine automation, from intelligent factory robots to collaborative drone fleets.
I sat down with Tommy Brown, Palladyne AI’s VP of business development and sales, to talk about the company’s evolution, its impact across industries, and how Utah plays into the future of autonomous systems.
For those new to Palladyne AI, can you give us a quick overview of what you do?
Palladyne AI is an artificial intelligence company focused on robotics — both industrial robotics and drones. We’ve been around since the 1980s under the name Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation, but today we’ve shifted entirely to software.
In the Sarcos days, we were a hardware-focused company. Over time, we realized that the real opportunity was to make the best existing hardware on the market smarter and more adaptable. Traditional automation is rigid. It’s hard to reprogram and only works in structured environments. Our AI helps robots operate in unstructured, unpredictable settings and makes them easier to use, reprogram and scale.
We’re headquartered in Salt Lake City with about 75 employees, combining decades of experience in robotics and software development.
How does your technology work? What does it look like in practice?
We have two core products built on the same foundation.
On the defense side, we have Pilot, our drone software. It enables detection, tracking and collaboration among multiple aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. With it, a single operator can control multiple drones simultaneously, getting real-time surveillance and data from multiple vantage points.
That’s critical in modern warfare. We can’t train 30,000 drone pilots overnight, so we need one operator to safely manage many drones through AI.
On the industrial side, we have Palladyne IQ, which helps robots perform complex manufacturing tasks — things like surface preparation, inspection or pick-and-place assembly — especially in what we call “high-mix, unstructured environments.”
What exactly is a “high-mix, unstructured environment?”
It’s a setting where the parts or tasks aren’t the same every day.
Take our current contract with the U.S. Air Force. They need surface preparation — basically sanding — on parts that are all different sizes and shapes. Traditionally, that’s been a manual process: repetitive, dirty and hard to automate.
Robots could handle one part really well if programmed for it, but the moment you change the part’s orientation or shape, the robot fails. With AI, the robot can adapt to those changes in real time. Instead of replacing workers, we let operators supervise several robots at once, multiplying their productivity.
I’m seeing how this can be applied beyond defense.
The same software can be used in manufacturing for quality control, inspection or kitting — where you pick and organize parts for assembly.
Let’s say you have three bins of mixed components. Our software lets a robot “see” the bin, identify a part, pick it up correctly and place it where it belongs. It’s all powered by computer vision and path planning.
That adaptability means manufacturers don’t need to reprogram robots every time something changes. It’s one software stack that can handle everything from sanding to packaging.
What has demand looked like for this technology?
It’s strong, but it comes with an education curve. There’s a lot of ‘AI washing” in the market, so we spend time showing people what real AI-enabled robotics looks like.
Seeing is believing. It’s hard to grasp in a PowerPoint presentation, so we invite partners to our facility or do virtual demonstrations. Once they see a robot reprogram itself in minutes or a single operator controlling multiple drones, the light bulb goes on.
Since you’ve moved away from hardware, how do you collaborate with manufacturers and integrators?
We partner with leading robotics OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] … and with systems integrators who help factories design full automation systems.
If a manufacturer wants to automate a process, they’ll hire a systems integrator who selects the robot, conveyor and other hardware. We provide the software that makes those robots intelligent and adaptive. The integrator bundles our solution into the full system bid.
That partnership model works, but it also means the sales cycle can be long — especially when you’re talking about multi-million-dollar automation projects.
What about regulations? Have they slowed down your drone applications?
The biggest challenge is with the FAA. Current rules require one pilot per drone, and flying beyond line of sight requires a waiver.
Our software can easily manage five or ten drones at once, but for compliance, we still need five pilots standing by — even though only one person is truly controlling them. That adds cost and complexity.
The FAA process for multi-aircraft waivers is improving, but it’s slow and site-specific. It’s understandable for populated areas, but when we’re testing on remote BLM land, the rules feel a little behind the technology.
When you talk about the defense side, it sounds like this technology could reshape how future conflicts are fought.
Absolutely. Autonomous systems at scale are the future of warfare, and we’re already seeing it in Ukraine.
The next generation of defense systems will rely on swarms of autonomous drones, surface vessels and other unmanned systems. Some will be one-time use, but others — like cargo ships or aircraft — can’t be disposable. You’ll need AI both to manufacture them efficiently and to maintain them.
That’s where Palladyne AI comes in. Whether it’s production, inspection or coordination, we’re enabling a “force multiplier” effect, allowing one person to supervise multiple robots or drones at once.
How do you make the ROI case to manufacturers or government partners?
Everything has to pencil out. Most manufacturers need to see a return on investment within one to two years.
We have to show how our software multiplies productivity. Maybe a person used to sand one part at a time, but now they’re supervising five robots sanding five parts simultaneously. That’s a measurable gain.
It’s not about replacing workers; it’s about reassigning them to higher-value tasks while letting automation handle the dull, dirty, and dangerous ones.
What should people in Utah’s business community be most excited about from Palladyne AI right now?
We have two active contracts with the Air Force that are hitting major milestones soon. On the industrial side, we’re showcasing six to eight different use cases at upcoming events — everything from surface prep to pick-and-place tasks, all powered by one software platform.
The beauty is that you no longer need a robotics engineer to train a robot. Our interface is intuitive, more like using an iPhone app than writing code. Someone with no robotics background can teach a robot to do a new task in minutes.
Anything else people should know about Palladyne AI?
We’re proud to be part of Utah’s growing aerospace and defense ecosystem. The talent here is incredible, and this state has become a real hub for innovation in autonomy and manufacturing.
We’re growing, we’re hiring and we’re excited to keep building right here in Salt Lake City.
