In Episode 26, we’re joined by Dr. Karl Zelik, a biomechanical engineer and Vanderbilt University professor whose work sits right at the intersection of research, real-world deployment, and industry translation. Karl is also Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at HeroWear, an industrial exosuit company, and a board member of the American Bionics Project, giving him a rare “full-stack” view of how wearable robotics has evolved from early lab prototypes to products and programs used in the field. In this conversation, Karl draws on that cross-sector perspective to unpack what’s truly changed in exoskeletons over the last decade: what progress is real, what misconceptions are finally fading, and what still needs to happen next.

Topics:

Chapters: 00:00 Intro + Dr. Karl Zelik joins the show 01:13 Episode framing: how exoskeleton wearables changed over the last decade 04:52 Karl’s background: academia + commercialization (“wearing many hats”) 20:28 Myths, hype, and misconceptions: what’s improved (and what still lingers) 24:29 The evidence gap: long-term/longitudinal injury impact data in workplace exos 29:49 Why many real-world “success stories” don’t make it into the public domain 34:52 The “Applications Vault” idea: organizing exos by use-case / jobs-to-be-done 54:58 Making it real: how to operationalize use-cases and define success in practice 1:14:54 Regional differences: what’s driving adoption in Asia vs elsewhere 1:29:58 Recreational/consumer exos: what could be real value vs what to be cautious about

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Transcript Summary:

Episode 26 is structured as a panel-style discussion on how the exoskeleton / wearable robotics industry has changed over the last decade, with Dr. Karl Zelik joining as the featured guest. The conversation aims to balance “what’s improved,” “what still frustrates the community,” and what signals suggest the field is moving from early adopters toward broader adoption.

Karl opens with a big-picture shift: over the last ten years, the center of gravity moved from academia into industry, with technologies leaving the lab and showing up in real deployments. On the medical side, he highlights the significance of finally getting CMS reimbursement codes after a long gap following FDA approval, an example of how much evidence had to be built to unlock real-world access.

He contrasts that with the occupational side, where he says the field has seen an explosion of evidence, not just lab results, but longer-term signals tied to injury outcomes, productivity, and return-on-investment. The framing is that the industry is now producing the kind of real-world impact data many early researchers hoped would eventually exist.

Karl then explains his “multi-hat” perspective: he’s a Vanderbilt professor leading biomechanics and wearable tech research, while also involved in commercialization (including exosuits deployed to workers across multiple industries), standards activities, and broader community communication. The point is that he’s watching the field simultaneously from research, deployment, and adoption angles.

A major theme becomes myths—and how the myths themselves have evolved. Karl describes “old myths” fading (for example, blanket claims like exos causing atrophy, that all exos are bulky robots, or simplistic “force transfer” narratives), while “new myths” emerge as the technology becomes more mainstream and people start judging it as a workplace investment.

One of those “new myths,” Karl argues, is the claim that there’s no longitudinal data on workplace exoskeleton outcomes. He pushes back hard, saying there’s a growing (though not always public) corpus of long-term evidence and large user-hour exposure, and that the challenge is often awareness and storytelling, not the total absence of data.

Another “new myth” is that exos are simply too expensive. Karl reframes the conversation: cost alone is the wrong lens; the relevant question is ROI. He says that after going deep into ROI calculators and compiling industry data, he’s confident that certain deployments can deliver strong returns, and that the field is only recently getting better at expressing value in a way that finance/operations stakeholders recognize.

This naturally leads to the maturity shift: the field is moving from explaining biomechanics (torque, moments, forces) to providing repeatable, comparable use-case evidence. Karl notes he gets pulled into fewer “explain the science” calls now, because companies increasingly want proof that peers in similar jobs achieved repeatable results—and that vendors can predict outcome “bands” based on accumulated field data.

You and Tom also emphasize the need for better public-facing “success stories,” and the episode digs into why many organizations won’t publish detailed injury/financial data even when results are good. A concrete idea emerges: an “applications vault” (a use-case-driven library) that helps people search by job type and needs rather than by product category, reflecting how real buyers think.

Later, the conversation widens to macro trends and tailwinds. Karl discusses how exoskeletons may become more normalized in society, and he sees consumer/recreational exos as a net-positive for awareness, while warning that hype and overpromising can backfire if products don’t deliver real value for enough users.

The episode also touches on geography and adoption signals: Europe may have tailwinds (vendors, safety culture, sometimes subsidies), Asia has drivers like demographics and scale, but Karl notes that much of the large-scale longitudinal adoption data he’s seen is still disproportionately coming from the U.S. The takeaway is that this is a global movement, but each region has different strengths and gaps.

Finally, Karl frames the timeline expectation: exoskeletons are still relatively early on the adoption curve for B2B hardware and safety tech, and it’s normal for mainstreaming to take decades. His closing tone is optimistic, but realistic. Progress comes in waves, and sustained adoption depends not just on the technology but also on products, services, timing, and external conditions.

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