Aeris, the IoT connectivity company that took over Ericsson's IoT Accelerator business in 2023, has hired a new chief marketing officer with a specific brief: position the company for what it calls the physical AI era.
Suresh Sathyamurthy joined Aeris as CMO on 1 September 2026. He will lead marketing, communications and global go-to-market strategy as Aeris aims to win business from makers of robots, self-driving vehicles and other smart machines. Sathyamurthy has more than 20 years of executive experience, including roles at Microsoft, where he helped scale Azure, and Palo Alto Networks, where he ran marketing for its biggest business unit, as well as Dell EMC and several start-ups.
An executive hire on its own is not big news. What makes this one worth a closer look is the message behind it. Connectivity providers are looking for a bigger role as AI moves out of data centres and into machines that sense and act in the real world.
Why Physical AI Matters To A Connectivity Company
Physical AI refers to AI systems that operate in the physical world: robots, autonomous vehicles, drones and industrial machines that perceive their surroundings and take actions. We explored how that shift changes IoT in our piece on how physical AI turns sensing into action.
Those machines still need to be connected. They send data back for monitoring and training, receive software and model updates, and in many cases depend on remote oversight. For a company like Aeris, that creates a case for moving beyond selling SIMs and data plans toward managing the connectivity, security and lifecycle of AI-driven devices.
"AI is moving off the screen and into the physical world, powering autonomous fleets, robotics, and intelligent infrastructure everywhere," Sathyamurthy said.
What Aeris Already Has
Aeris does not start from scratch. According to the company, it connects about 115 million devices, including some 45 million vehicles, for around 7,000 enterprise customers, working with more than 30 mobile network operators. Its portfolio includes the IoT Accelerator connectivity management platform it gained from Ericsson, the IoT Watchtower security service and a Mobility Suite for connected vehicles.
The Ericsson deal, which closed in March 2023, brought Aeris a large base of automotive and enterprise connections. Vehicles are already one of the most advanced forms of physical AI, with driver assistance, over-the-air updates and increasingly autonomous features, which gives Aeris a starting point. Our look at how IoT rewired the car traces how that connectivity became central to modern vehicles.
"Aeris has spent years earning the trust of enterprises who depend on us to keep their most critical assets connected and secure," said Aeris chief executive Aziz Benmalek.
Security As The Selling Point
Sathyamurthy's background leans heavily toward cloud and security, which hints at how Aeris wants to present itself. As machines gain the ability to act on their own, the consequences of a compromised device grow. A hijacked sensor leaks data. A hijacked robot or vehicle can cause physical harm.
That raises the value of network-level security: spotting unusual device behaviour, isolating compromised units and controlling what each device can reach. Aeris' Watchtower service is aimed at exactly this kind of monitoring, and the company is likely to push it harder as a part of its physical AI story.
ESIM Flexibility Is Part Of The Pitch
Robots and autonomous machines are often sold globally and stay in service for years, which makes flexible connectivity important. Aeris has been promoting its support for SGP.32, the GSMA's eSIM standard for IoT, which lets companies change operator profiles remotely over a device's life. We covered what that standard changes in our piece on the fight over the IoT SIM.
A Crowded Race For The Same Story
Aeris is far from alone in reframing its business around AI. Chipmakers, module vendors, cloud providers and IoT platforms are all trying to position themselves as essential infrastructure for physical AI. The connectivity layer is one of the harder places to stand out, because many customers still see it as a commodity.
A marketing leader with experience scaling cloud and security businesses suggests Aeris wants to sell a platform, not a pipe. Whether customers accept that framing will depend on the products Aeris delivers, particularly around security, device management and support for the demands of AI-driven machines, such as large software updates and reliable low-latency links.
For readers interested in where AI processing happens in these systems, our piece on Jetson Thor's edge AI result looks at the computing side of the same trend.
The Bottom Line
Suresh Sathyamurthy's appointment as Aeris' CMO is a people move, but it signals a strategic direction. Aeris wants to be seen as the connectivity and security layer for robots, autonomous vehicles and intelligent machines, building on its base of more than 100 million connected devices.
The hire gives Aeris experienced leadership for that message. The harder part will be showing, through products and customer wins, that connectivity providers have a distinctive role to play as AI moves into the physical world.
