REAL 2026: Readiness & Enablement for Automated Labs
Zifo joins Ginkgo Bioworks and MilliporeSigma for a one-day, invite-only summit on what it actually takes to build the lab of the future — the wins, the setbacks, and the honest lessons in between.
September 15, 2026 Seaport, Boston 
As physical AI and agentic platforms mature, laboratory automation is moving faster than ever — knitting robotics together with real-time data capture, analytics and AI/ML. Reaching a truly integrated “lab-in-the-loop” model means bridging decades of pharma expertise with the newest life-science technology. REAL 2026 brings pharma, biotech, automation, data and AI leaders into one room to compare notes candidly and speed up what the industry collectively learns. Zifo is proud to sponsor the summit and to lead a market-view session on where the industry is really headed.
Agenda & Featured Speakers
Registration, Breakfast & Networking
Grab a coffee and meet the people actually building the labs of tomorrow.
Welcome to REAL
A frank kickoff to a day built on shared learning.
ML
Melissa Landon
MilliporeSigma
The Autonomous Wet Lab of the Future
A look at what it takes to build the Waymo of wet labs.
JK
Jason Kelly
Ginkgo
Pharma Perspective I: What Next-Gen Actually Looks Like at the Bench
Real lessons from inside a major pharma's automation build-out — the wins, the false starts, and what they'd do differently.
Pharma Perspective II: Where the Real Excitement Is
A second pharma vantage point on where automation is headed next, and what's got teams energized.
Coffee break
National Lab Perspective: a Real Implementation Story
Lessons from a national lab that's already living the automated-lab reality.
Market View: What We're Seeing Across the Industry
A 25-minute view from the front lines of the market, plus live Q&A on where the puck is headed next.
ZT
Zifo team
Zifo
Lunch + Optional Ginkgo Facility Tour
Fuel up, with an optional tour of a working autonomous lab.
Lightning Round: Hardware Innovators
Rapid-fire talks on what's possible today and what's on the roadmap from the teams building the physical layer of automated labs:
HiRes
Biosero
Automata
Lightning Round: Software & Data Infrastructure
Rapid-fire talks from the other half of the stack — the platforms turning lab data into usable intelligence:
Benchling
Dotmatics
Tetrascience
Agentic AI's Role in the Next-Gen Automated Lab
Where autonomous agents fit into the lab-in-the-loop vision and how close we really are.
Coffee Break
Closing the Loop: Integrating Automated Wet Labs and Data Generation
A practical look at what it takes to connect physical experimentation with the data systems built to learn from it.
S
Speaker
Lila
Closing Panel: What Will it Actually Take to Make it REAL?
Pharma, hardware, and data/AI leaders go head-to-head on the honest question: how do we actually get this done together?
Closing Remarks
Reception at Ginkgo
25 Drydock Ave (8 min walk). Unwind and keep the conversation going over drinks.
FAQ
Meet Zifo at REAL 2026
REAL 2026 is invite-only and run by Ginkgo Bioworks — request your invitation directly through their registration link.
If you’d like face time with the Zifo team while you’re there, tell us a bit about yourself and we’ll set up a slot around our market-view session.