Tactus AI Joins Industry Leaders at Executive War College to Chart the Future of Lab Automation

New Orleans— Tactus AI Chief Commercial Officer Mike Quick joined a featured panel at the Executive War Collegeconference in New Orleans, “Automation, Robotics, and the Future Lab Workforce: A Panel on Emerging Technologies Transforming Diagnostics.” Moderated by industry veteran Ted Schwab of Schwab Tremblay Solutions, the discussion brought Tactus AI together with Alex Bodell, Founder and CTO of FormaPath, and Bob Gerberich, CCO of Vitestro, to examine how robotics and AI will reshape laboratory workflows over the next five years.

A Workforce Crisis That Demands a New Kind of Solution

Across the panel, one message was unmistakable: the laboratory staffing crisis is no longer a future problem — it is here. Mike Quick cited roughly 25,000 unfilled laboratory technician positions in the U.S. each year, and Bob Gerberich shared market research showing 20–25% average absenteeism in lab staffing, climbing to 35% on Mondays and Fridays. With test complexity and volume rising alongside an aging population, panelists agreed that incremental fixes will not close the gap.

Tactus AI: Humanoid Robots Built for the Lab, Not the Warehouse

Mike Quick used his time on stage to introduce Tactus AI's distinctive approach. While other humanoid robotics programs are being built for factories and warehouses or the home, Tactus AI is engineering humanoid robots specifically for the regulated, high-stakes environment of the clinical laboratory — designed from the ground up by a team with deep diagnostic and regulatory experience.

Three things set Tactus AI apart, Mike told the audience:

• Lab-native design. The founding team brings decades of laboratory and FDA experience, including one of the first AI products cleared by the FDA for cervical cancer screening. Regulatory rigor and lab safety are built in from day one.
• A friendly, approachable form factor. Tactus AI's robots are intentionally non-threatening — built to work alongside lab staff rather than in isolation, and to complement, not replace, the human workforce.
• A trust-first deployment philosophy. “Innovation moves at the pace of trust,” Quick said, framing Tactus AI's commercialization plan around early, carefully chosen partners and demonstrable safety and reliability before scale.

Looking ahead, Mike projected that thousands of humanoid robots could be deployed across laboratories over the next five years, driven less by industry push than by laboratory pull as directors look for sustainable answers to chronic shortages. Learn more about the Tactus AI intelligent robotics platform.

Complementary Innovation Across the Diagnostic Workflow

The panel underscored how robotics and AI are advancing in parallel across the entire diagnostic chain. Alex Bodell described FormaPath's platform for automating the “front door” of pathology — grossing and sample accessioning — to bring quality, standardization, and unit-economic predictability to a step still done largely by hand. Bob Gerberich detailed Vitestro's CE-marked autonomous blood-draw device, which has demonstrated above 90% patient acceptance in European studies and is being introduced to U.S. health systems through research partnerships ahead of FDA clearance.

Together, the three companies illustrated a coherent picture: pre-analytical automation, autonomous specimen collection, and humanoid lab assistance converging to enable the long-promised vision of true end-to-end laboratory automation.

Three Imperatives for Lab Leaders

Panelists closed by aligning around three priorities for the years ahead: quality (standardization, auditability, and patient safety), unit economics (predictable cost-to-result in the face of labor volatility), and data (capturing and using workflow data that today goes unmeasured).

For lab directors and investors evaluating the next wave of diagnostics, the panel made one thing clear — the convergence of AI, robotics, and humanoid systems is no longer theoretical. Tactus AI is proud to be helping lead it. For more on the team's recent industry engagements, see our reflections from USCAP 2026.

Tactus AI is an early-stage company developing humanoid robots designed to work safely and collaboratively in clinical and pathology laboratories. To learn more or to discuss partnership opportunities, get in touch.