Impact: High2026-10-30· Otto Group official newsroom, October 30, 2026.
Otto Group and Sereact bring NVIDIA-powered physical AI to returns processing
On October 30, 2026, Otto Group and robotics software company Sereact announced a two-phase deployment of up to 25 AI-controlled dual-arm robots at an Otto Group logistics center in Poland, starting with ten systems, to grasp, identify, assess and sort returned items. The robots run on Cortex, Sereact's Physical AI model, trained and validated with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab and Cosmos, which can handle items it has never encountered without product-specific teaching. Under a Robotics-as-a-Service model, Sereact operates and maintains the systems, while employees shift from repetitive grasping and lifting to supervision, exception handling and quality checks. These are the partners' stated plans and intended benefits, not independently verified results. Image disclosure: the illustration is a thematic Pexels stock photograph of an industrial robotic arm (photo 34194567), free license verified on the source page on October 31, 2026; it is not a photo of the Otto Group deployment.
The Dataleo angle
Returns processing is where automation promises the most and proves the least, because no catalog describes a crumpled, repackaged return. The operating model matters more than the robot count: Sereact keeps the system running under Robotics-as-a-Service, but Otto Group still owns the disposition decisions that carry margin and customer impact, such as grade, refurbish, restock or liquidate. Dataleo's read: the partnership explicitly keeps exception handling and quality checks with employees, which is the right boundary as long as it is contractual and not incidental. The open question for phase two is who is accountable when the model's assessment of a returned item is wrong, and who can override it in the flow.