Three-quarters of manufacturers (77%) expect physical AI to have a significant impact on warehouse operations, and 75% anticipate the same across assembly and manufacturing, according to the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) report – Future-Ready Manufacturing: TCS Physical AI Readiness Report 2026. The report surveyed 300 manufacturing c-suite executives and vice presidents across North America and Europe and was published in conjunction with the Farnborough International Airshow 2026. No surveyed organisation plans to reduce their investments, and 26% plan to increase spending. Additionally, 71% of manufacturers view physical AI as helping employees work more safely, efficiently and productively while supporting workforce redeployment. Anupam Singhal, President of Manufacturing at TCS, said employees can be redeployed and retrained for roles involving supervision, exception management, maintenance, safety oversight and process optimisation. TCS’s Physical AI Gemini Experience Center in Troy, Michigan, US, demonstrates how Google’s multimodal Gemini models integrate with robotics, edge computing and digital twins. For an agricultural technology manufacturer, quadruped-based hazard patrolling contributed to a 90% reduction in safety incidents and a 30% reduction in operational downtime. An automotive manufacturer improved first-time-right weld rates by 10–20% using AI-powered weld-quality prediction, and an AI-powered digital twin helped a construction and mining equipment manufacturer improve throughput by 25%.