As a speaker, I’ve presented this at public events a handful of times, and will increase this as this market evolves, maybe even hosting a few events on the topic. As an investor. we’ve already backed a handful of leading agentic startups like CrewAI, Composio, Skyfire, Ambiguous and more…I see the next phase: Agentic+ Physical AI
In the last year, AI agents have moved from software tools to real world operators. Robots are now completing tasks in factories, warehouses, hospitals, farms, and homes. The next challenge is coordination. We need a control layer that helps agents work together in complex environments with many variables.
This is where AROW comes in.
AROW stands for Agentic Robotics Orchestration Workflows.
It is the emerging software layer that enables autonomous agents to coordinate many types of robots. The goal is simple. Give robots the ability to sense the world, plan actions, work together, and complete tasks with safety at the center.
AROW systems share several traits.
- They are autonomous and goal driven
- They interact with the physical world
- They use many sensors
- They work with many hardware vendors
- They adapt to changing environments
- They follow safety rules and human oversight
I define AROW as the software control layer that enables autonomous AI agents to coordinate diverse robots in real world environments.
To be effective, AROW platforms must do the following:
- Perceive the world, plan actions, and carry them out. This can include natural language instructions, LLM reasoning, and world models.
- Orchestrate workflows that involve multiple robots while interacting with humans, systems, and the environment.
- Remain hardware agnostic so companies can mix and match robots from different OEMs.
- Ensure safety through human in the loop oversight, guardrails, evaluations, and fail safe behavior.
- Adapt and learn over time as environments and tasks change.
AROW is the missing layer that will allow robotics to scale. Without it, robots stay isolated and limited. With it, they become part of coordinated systems that complete real work in the physical world.
I believe that AROW will become one of the most important software categories of the next decade. It will shape how factories run, how goods move, how homes operate, and how cities function.
In an upcoming newsletter Ill share the AROW tech stack. More to come.
Write back if you’re a startup working in this area, I’d like to learn more.
