Czech manufacturing has spent decades winning investment with a combination of engineering capability, proximity to Germany and a comparatively efficient cost base. The next phase is harder. Wage convergence, demographics and pressure on European industry mean productivity has to do more of the work.
Czech Business Review's 2026 audience survey suggests companies understand that shift. Of 1,983 respondents, 43% said automation and robotics were very important to their capital-expenditure plans and 30% called them critical.
The investment intention goes beyond one technology
Asked about factories, automation and logistics over the next 24 months, 45% said they were likely to increase investment and 32% very likely. That is a broader industrial signal than enthusiasm for robotics alone. It points toward modernising the production system around machines, material flow, data and plant capacity.
Respondents also have meaningful productivity expectations. Twenty-nine per cent expect AI, robotics and automation to improve productivity by 16% to 20% within three years. Nineteen per cent expect 21% to 30%, and 8% expect more than 30%. Those are expectations, not realised results, but they show the hurdle against which investment is being judged.
CzechInvest is seeing the same shift in project composition
CzechInvest's 2025 investment results offer a useful external check. The agency reported CZK 26.4 billion of intermediated investment and 1,308 potential new jobs. It explicitly linked the lower number of jobs per project to greater technological intensity and increased automation and robotisation.
One example cited by the agency involved a CZK 230 million fully automated operation expected to create only nine new jobs. That is a reminder that modern industrial policy cannot use headcount alone as the measure of a project's value.
Automation can protect the manufacturing base without freezing it in place
For Czechia, the economic case is not to preserve every existing production task. It is to keep the country attractive for higher-value manufacturing as simple labour-cost arbitrage becomes less persuasive. Automation can make smaller production runs, tighter quality control and more complex products viable at a Central European cost base.
The risk is a two-speed economy in which large exporters automate quickly while smaller suppliers struggle with finance, integration skills and uncertain returns. The productivity benefit then concentrates at the top of the supply chain instead of diffusing through it.
The next evidence should come from realised productivity
The CBR survey is an audience survey, not a nationally representative sample of Czech manufacturers. Its strongest use is as a forward indicator of business priorities. The 73% capex result and 77% near-term investment intention are substantial, but the harder evidence will be output per worker, defect rates, energy intensity and supplier competitiveness after projects are installed.
Czechia's industrial position will not be secured by buying more robots. It will be secured if automation allows companies to produce more valuable output with the labour, energy and capital they actually have.
| Measure | Share |
|---|---|
| Automation/robotics very important or critical to capex | 73% |
| Likely/very likely to increase factory, automation or logistics investment | 77% |
| Expect 16-20% productivity improvement | 29% |
| Expect >20% productivity improvement | 27% |
Frequently asked questions
How important is automation to Czech companies?
In Czech Business Review's 2026 audience survey of 1,983 respondents, 73% rated automation and robotics very important or critical to capital expenditure plans.
Does more automation mean fewer investment projects?
Not necessarily. It can increase the capital intensity of projects while reducing the number of jobs created per unit of investment, which is already visible in CzechInvest's commentary on recent projects.