- Wiliot and AT&T inked a collaboration deal to distribute the former's asset tags to more customers
- The pair pitched the deal as a way to help businesses build the data layer needed for physical AI deployments
- Right now, retail, logistics and hospitality are key verticals but stationary asset tracking could be key in the future
Wiliot has developed specialized tags to help enterprises track assets in transit. Now, it’s partnered with AT&T to get those tags in the hands of more enterprises. But the deal isn’t just about distribution, it’s about creating a data layer that will enable the physical AI future.
Anyone who have gone to the grocery store is familiar with RFID tags. But the tags Wiliot uses are different, Wiliot VP Amir Khoshniyati told Fierce. They are passive Bluetooth-based tags that don’t require any battery to function and continually broadcast asset data about location, temperature, humidity, light exposure and movement to Wiliot’s cloud platform.
Via the partnership, AT&T is bringing not only customer distribution channels but also new IoT network connectivity to move the tag data to data centers for processing.
“We’re addressing some of the gaps historically that have been there. But we’re only so big and so this type of partnership is so important for us,” Khoshniyati said.
But what does any of this have to do with physical AI?
The physical AI link
When we hear the term physical AI, we tend to think of humanoid robots or drones that interact with physical environments.
But Lee Wagner, Area Vice President at AT&T, told Fierce those machines need data about the world around them. And that’s where the Wiliot partnership really matters, especially given Goldman Sachs has predicted the global humanoid robot market could be worth $38 billion by 2035.
“Robots don’t know when something is misaligned or not exactly the right thing or not in the right place. This technology will let them know that,” Wagner explained. “The physical AI has to be all of the interactions.”
Today, Wiliot’s technology is key for segments with assets in transit – verticals like retail, logistics and hospitality. Prior to the AT&T deal, for instance, Wiliot secured Walmart as a key customer.
But in the future, Wagner said he sees tracking for fixed assets as increasingly important for use cases like lights out manufacturing and other work-in-progress activities.
“As the robots are moving around and the robots are doing this and that ‘where is my stuff’ still matters and what stuff it is still matters,” he concluded.