IN 2025, palletising and depalletising accounted for 83% of the robotic picking market. It is a mature segment, used in warehousing for decades and proven in large-scale automation deployments. By 2030, Interact Analysis forecasts that combined share will fall to around 58%.

The applications displacing it are growing far faster. Robotic bin picking is projected to grow at a 36% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2026 and 2030, while robotic trailer unloading is forecast to grow at 64% CAGR over the same period.

Bin picking has been held back by integration. As an add-on, it has to slot into existing workflows and talk to the WMS or WES, which has deterred warehouse operators. That is changing as suppliers package the technology into modular solutions that cut integration complexity, with AutoStore’s VersaAI Workstation and Ocado’s on-grip picking among the examples.

Trailer unloading, by contrast, is a largely standalone solution aimed at a process operators are urgently trying to automate. Large orders are building confidence in the technology’s maturity: DHL has announced plans to deploy more than 1,000 additional Boston Dynamics Stretch robots globally, having first used Stretch for trailer unloading, while UPS is reported to have earmarked around $120 million for approximately 400 Pickle robots for truck unloading. Interact Analysis’ Voice of Market survey of more than 300 warehouse stakeholders found 43.4% identified receiving and unloading as a priority workflow in their automation roadmap.

Palletising itself is not standing still. Interest is growing in inbound palletising, where floor-loaded shipments are palletised after unloading and before being moved into storage, reflecting demand for automation across inbound processes rather than outbound alone. Partnerships are pushing in the same direction, with Pickle and Ambi Robotics teaming up, and Boston Dynamics and Jacobi Robotics demonstrating combined unloading and palletising at MODEX 2026.

The competitive landscape is shifting with the applications. Emerging bin-picking providers such as Ocado, Nomagic and Sereact are taking share from the market’s early pioneers as adoption widens, and vendors offering trailer unloading robots are claiming a larger slice of the overall robotic picking market as that application expands.

Irene Zhang, senior analyst at Interact Analysis, said customers are increasingly thinking beyond immediate automation needs and considering how today’s deployments support a longer-term roadmap, while suppliers adapt their strategies to shifting customer priorities.

The report values the robotic picking market at $1.7 billion in 2025, rising to $4.6 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 21.7% across the 2026-2030 forecast period. On that trajectory, robotic picking will account for 10% of the total warehouse automation market by 2030, double its 5% share in 2025.

You can download the report here. 

Companies named in the research will be at Tomorrow’s Warehouse Manchester on 30 September 2026 at Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground. DHL Supply Chain’s VP project delivery Tim Bolam speaks in the Operations Theatre on WMS transformation, and bin-picking specialist Nomagic exhibits at the show. Headline sponsor Element Logic is an AutoStore integrator and expert in the mentioned VersaAI Workstation. Element Logic will present on the importance of software in warehouse automation.

Register free here.