High-tech “self-driving” labs, AI drug discovery and gene editing: “A veritable movement of autonomous science is underway,” declares a 2025 paper from the Royal Society, the world's most prestigious science institution.

Pro
Analysis
January 20, 2026
Meet the startups bringing AI and robots to the lab
Autonomous science is transforming not just how research begins, but how it ends
2 min read
Éanna Kelly is a contributing editor at Sifted, and writes Startup Life , a weekly newsletter on what it takes to build a startup. Follow him on X and LinkedIn

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