It’s Not the Robot, It’s the Application: A New Era in Standards

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” – Confucius

For over a decade,“collaborative robot”– often affectionately shortened to cobot – has been a buzzword in automation. It described a new breed of robots designed to work safely alongside humans, free from the confines of traditional industrial robots. The term 
Industry Insights: Industrial Robot Safety Standard Gets Major Update | Association for... in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as companies explored increased human-robot interaction. However, the latest standards update has given this popular term a reality check (and a formal send-off). In 2025, international and U.S. standards bodies decided that collaboration is something you do, not something a robot inherently is.

The revised ISO 10218-1:2025-Robotics -Safety requirements -- Part 1: Industrial robots – the flagship international robot safety standard – pointedly omits any definition of "collaborative robot." In a 

Updated ISO 10218| Answers to Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)|A3, the standards committee makes it clear: “The terms ‘collaborative robot’ and ‘collaborative operation’ will not be found in the revised ISO 10218. ‘Collaborative application’ is used instead, as only the actual use of the robot can be designed, tested, and confirmed as a collaborative application.” In other words, you won’t find the word cobot in the new ISO rulebook at all. The American National Standards (ANSI/A3) followed suit. The updated ANSI/A3 R15.06-2025: Modernizing Industrial Robot Safety Standards – PL... (the U.S. industrial robot safety standard adapted from ISO 10218-1/-2:2025) likewise eschews the term “collaborative robot,” replacing it with the more precise concept of a collaborative application.

This terminology change might sound like splitting semantic hairs, but it carries significant weight. It reflects a maturation in how experts think about safe human-robot interaction. After all, simply calling a machine a collaborative robot doesn’t magically make it safe in all scenarios, and the standards developers finally had enough of the confusion.