11 Quirkiest Jobs That Will Be Billion-Dollar Industries by 2026 (Includes 4 Wildcards)

3. Robot–Human Interaction Designers: UX for Cobots

Robots have moved beyond cages and now share spaces with humans in warehouses, hospitals, and shops. That shift creates a need for designers who focus on human–robot interaction: safety flows, predictable motions, emotional affordances, and communication cues. This job fuses industrial design, behavioral science, and robotics engineering. Companies that deploy fleets of collaborative robots need predictable, human-friendly interfaces so workers can trust and cooperate with machines. Industry reports and corporate disclosures show enormous robotic deployments—Amazon's large-scale robot rollouts and other automated facilities are part of the evidence (Forbes). Deloitte's manufacturing outlook highlights automation paired with human oversight as a growth area. Venture funding for robotics platforms and software also signals developer demand (Crunchbase, PitchBook). The role feels quirky because it centers on choreography between flesh and metal, but it's grounded in measurable safety, throughput, and ergonomics gains. There are strong signals of rapid expansion, though independent projections that this exact occupational class alone reaches billion-dollar status by 2026 are limited; the broader robotics market does have substantial forecasts.