ASTM and Singapore Standards Council Identify Five Gaps Holding Back Embodied AI

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A robot can complete an impressive demonstration and still leave a prospective customer with difficult questions. How will it behave when people interrupt its task? Who controls the data its cameras collect? Can it work alongside machines from another supplier?

Those deployment questions are at the center of a white paper announced on November 3 by ASTM International and Enterprise Singapore, through the Singapore Standards Council (SSC). A Pathway for Future Embodied AI Standards Development identifies five standardization priorities for bringing intelligent physical systems into wider use.

Developed with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and National Robotics Programme, the paper follows a July 2025 workshop involving more than 140 representatives from industry, government, research, and academia. Its agenda spans data governance, AI reliability, workplace safety, interoperability, and procurement. It is a starting point for standards development rather than a new certification that robot suppliers can already claim.

Embodied AI connects machine intelligence to physical systems, including robots, autonomous vehicles, and other intelligent machines. It puts perception and decision-making into a setting where an error can affect people, equipment, and the surrounding environment.

As Unite.AI has explored in its coverage of how language models are changing embodied AI, increasingly capable AI opens new possibilities for robot behavior. The commercial question is how to make those capabilities dependable enough for everyday operations.

Consider a hypothetical delivery robot in a hospital. Completing a route is only one part of its job. It must also fit the building’s access arrangements, make its intentions understandable to staff, and operate within appropriate data-handling rules. A successful demonstration of navigation answers only part of a purchasing decision.