Palladyne IQ 2.0 provides a deployable, secure autonomy software layer for factories, depots, and logistics environments to rapidly implement advanced automation initiatives—improving speed, agility, quality, and cost discipline in support of the Trump Administration’s warfighter-first contracting priorities

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 12, 2026-- Palladyne AI (NASDAQ: PDYN) today announced the completion and commercial availability of Palladyne™ IQ 2.0. The Company’s next-generation industrial autonomy software product for industrial robots incorporates capabilities refined through customer trials and operational evaluations. IQ 2.0 is designed to help industries modernize and automate complex work cells, material flow, and industrial operations—particularly in mission-critical environments where reliability, safety, and uptime are non-negotiable.

The completion of IQ 2.0 and its readiness for production deployment is well timed given the heightened focus from the Trump Administration on accelerating defense procurement, restoring accountability, and revitalizing the U.S. defense industrial base. On January 7, 2026, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order and related public commentary prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense contracting emphasizing the need for rapid modernization, improved efficiency, and measurable performance across the defense industry, including explicit expectations around producing superior products on time and on budget.

IQ 2.0 is purpose-built to serve as a practical, cost-effective, and rapidly deployable pillar of industrial modernization—providing a secure software-based autonomy layer for stationary and mobile robots that is hardware-agnostic and can be implemented without requiring wholesale replacement of existing industrial equipment or infrastructure.

A core element of IQ 2.0’s value proposition is its low-code / no-code autonomy framework, which enables line workers and technicians—not just specialized engineers—to quickly program, adapt, and repurpose robots and autonomous machines for new tasks. This approach dramatically reduces deployment timelines, lowers reliance on scarce engineering resources, and decreases overall automation cost, while improving equipment utilization, operational flexibility, and factory-level margins. By accelerating production, improving quality consistency, and reducing cost and schedule risk, IQ 2.0 directly supports the Trump Administration’s objectives of modernizing the defense industrial base and ensuring superior products are delivered on time and on budget.

IQ 2.0: Industrial Autonomy Built for Modernization at Scale

IQ 2.0 is intended to enable industrial and defense-industrial operators to:

• Automate repetitive, complex, hazardous, and labor-intensive workflows using autonomy-enabled systems
• Increase operational agility, production throughput, and schedule adherence through adaptive task execution and real-time decisioning
• Reduce defects, rework, and process variability through consistent, data-driven execution
• Improve operational resilience by reducing dependence on scarce skilled labor for high-variability tasks
• Rapidly integrate into mixed fleets and heterogeneous environments through an open, modular architecture

IQ 2.0 is designed for accelerated robot autonomy deployment across manufacturing facilities, depots, maintenance operations, and logistics environments, where the imperative is clear: deliver more capability, faster, with predictable cost and quality.

“Recent executive orders reinforce what defense and industrial operators are already confronting: modernization and improved operational performance are not optional,” said Ben Wolff, Chief Executive Officer of Palladyne AI. “IQ 2.0 is engineered to help defense and industrial operators modernize quickly raising throughput, improving quality, and tightening cost and schedule execution.”

Wolff continued, “IQ 2.0 was built to operate where modernization happens—on the factory floor, in depots, and across industrial workflows. By enabling workers to rapidly reprogram and redeploy autonomous systems, IQ 2.0 turns automation into a flexible, scalable production advantage rather than a fixed-cost constraint.”

Commercial Availability

IQ 2.0 is ready for customer testing and deployment. Palladyne AI is actively engaging with industrial and defense-industrial customers seeking near-term operational improvements, scalable autonomy deployments, and modernization programs aligned with national defense priorities.

For more information on IQ 2.0, demonstrations, or deployment discussions, please contact:

Palladyne AI
sales@palladyneai.com

palladynedefense@palladyneai.com
www.palladyneai.com

About Palladyne AI

Palladyne AI is a U.S.-based technology company developing patented embodied artificial intelligence, collaborative autonomy solutions, advanced avionics, autonomous systems, advanced UAV engineering services, and precision-manufactured components for defense and industrial markets. Palladyne AI delivers secure, American-developed and operated platforms designed to meet the stringent requirements of U.S. government and public-sector customers, including data sovereignty, security, and compliance.

Palladyne AI’s embodied AI is designed to operate in complex, contested, and high-risk environments, enabling distributed tasking, human-on-the-loop decision-making, degraded-communications resilience, and multi-domain coordination. Its platform-agnostic autonomy stack combines real-time sensor fusion, adaptive AI models, and edge-native orchestration—without vendor lock-in—to support autonomous and collaborative systems across air, ground, maritime, and industrial domains where performance, resilience, and trust are paramount. For more information about Palladyne AI, including GuideTech and Palladyne Defense, please visit www.palladyneai.com.

Palladyne Defense

Palladyne Defense is Palladyne AI’s division positioned as a mid-tier U.S. technology prime defense contractor. Palladyne Defense bridges innovative autonomy, practical engineering, and American production to bring intelligent systems into active service—faster, safer, and more cost-effectively than legacy approaches. With U.S.-based manufacturing, Palladyne Defense delivers software, components, subsystems, and complete loitering munition systems aligned with the Department of War’s growing demand for cost-effective, rapidly deployable, and domestically produced defense technologies.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding Palladyne AI’s target markets and customers; the capabilities and benefits of its technology and products, particularly Palladyne IQ 2.0; and the applicability of its autonomy software to different kinds of environments, processes and machines; and the extent of interoperability with disparate platforms. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Generally, statements that are not historical facts, including statements concerning possible or assumed future actions, business strategies, events, or results of operations, are forward-looking statements. These statements may be preceded by, followed by, or include the words “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “plans,” “scheduled,” “anticipates,” “intends” or “continue” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results, or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Palladyne AI’s management’s current expectations and beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events. However, there can be no assurance that the events, results, or trends identified in these forward-looking statements will occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Palladyne AI is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update, alter or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Readers should carefully review the statements set forth in the reports which Palladyne AI has filed or will file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in particular the risks and uncertainties set forth in the sections of those reports entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” for a description of risks facing Palladyne AI and that could cause actual events, results or performance to differ from those indicated in the forward-looking statements contained herein. The documents filed by Palladyne AI with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

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Palladyne AI Investor Contact:
Brian S. Siegel, IRC®, M.B.A.
Senior Managing Director
Hayden IR - Chicago
(346) 396-8696 (o)
brian@haydenir.com
IR@palladyneai.com

Palladyne AI Press Contact:
Heath Meyer
(858) 768-1527
PR@palladyneai.com

Source: Palladyne AI