We Connected Digital Agents to Physical Robots via a Multi-Agent Network at WRC 2026

At the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC) in Beijing, a robot walked up to the podium to help run the award ceremony, marking a significant step in the integration of digital agents and physical robots. Mininglamp, a company showcasing the technology, laid out the idea that robots require two brains: one for vision and action, and another for orchestration.

The first brain focuses on processing visual input to enable physical actions, while the second brain coordinates multiple machines, dispatches across systems, and connects to existing IT. The WRC scenarios demonstrated this concept in a real-world setting, with robots performing tasks such as restaurant cleaning and warehouse logistics.

Both digital agents and robots share a similar evolutionary path, with tool use, rule engines, expert systems, RPA, and general agents making the transition from hard-coded to fully autonomous systems. However, they both rely on structured skills in the middle, with digital agents using CoALA memory layers and robots utilizing spatial, task trajectory, semantic, and skill memories.

To facilitate communication between robots, agents, and legacy systems, a shared communication protocol is needed. The proposed solution is a vendor-neutral, open, and simple protocol, similar to email, which allows multiple participant types to communicate without being locked into a single vendor. The WRC collaboration serves as a validation of the direction, but there is still more work to be done in terms of real-world scenarios, latency budgets, and organizational paths.

The Octo platform, which is the first step in implementing this idea, is open source to encourage testing and development by a wide range of developers.