Why a Robot will soon become more cost-effective than an Employee. Insights after Web Summit 2025

Sergey Yuriev, Head of the Additional Products Sales Department, took part in the world's largest technological forum, Web Summit, which took place in Lisbon from November 10 to 13. The event gathered over 100,000 participants from 130 countries. Upon his return, the expert shared the main insights and highlighted the key trends discussed on the global stage.

Artificial Intelligence as a Factor of Transformation

Artificial intelligence remains the most powerful engine of progress. But despite the rapid penetration of technologies, Sergey noted that not all businesses and households have fully adapted to them. Nevertheless, he emphasized that AI has solidified its status as a key tool that is fundamentally changing the rules of the game in terms of company efficiency. The lion's share of innovations and startups presented at the forum were, one way or another, related to neural networks.

Sergey paid special attention to the use of AI agents. Referring to the speech of the CEO of Cognizant, he noted that it is the ability to combine various AI solutions under one roof that will be the breakthrough of the coming year. Companies that can create AI agents that write solutions instead of a human will develop exponentially faster.

The speech of the owner of the online whiteboard platform Miro aroused particular interest in Sergey Yuriev. The expert liked the company's approach to building product teams by dividing them into three divisions: the first division analyzes what specifically needs to be strengthened within the product; the second division studies markets and global trends to find external solutions; the third works on how to deliver the product to the user as effectively as possible.

Sergey noted an important idea from the Miro presentation. It is that businesses need to increase the number of early adopters. This allows for timely collection of quality feedback and its use for improving functionality.

The Trend towards Humanity in Branding and the Robotization of the Labor Market

A curious counter-trend is emerging in the field of design and marketing. With the increased use of AI, brands have begun to lose their "human face." As the speakers noted, this negatively affects reach and engagement. "A person is needed for a brand. Content must have a face, so the influence of life-content is intensifying," Sergey emphasizes.

He also drew attention to the simultaneously frightening and impressive forecasts from the CEO of Boston Dynamics. The use of humanoid robots in industry has increased fivefold in two years. Clear examples are the Hyundai and Alibaba factories, which are already 90% automated, and DHL and FedEx are already planning to create fully robotized warehouses.

Robots are already replacing people in taxis, logistics, and cleaning, and in 5 years, the cost of one robot may become lower than the cost of hiring one general laborer. All of this will be a turning point in the labor market, and to prevent people from becoming unemployed, governments will have to massively retrain them for professions that require mental labor.