da Vinci (and Ion) vs ROSA in 2026

da Vinci (and Ion)

Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci is the gold-standard surgical robot and the verified-at-scale anchor of the category. Per Intuitive's SEC filings, 11,395 da Vinci systems and 1,041 Ion endoluminal systems are installed. The lineup spans da Vinci multi-port (X/Xi), the single-port SP, and the fifth-generation da Vinci 5 (FDA cleared March 2024, with force feedback), plus the Ion bronchoscopy robot (FDA 2019).

It is teleoperated, a surgeon controls every motion, with shipped analytics AI; autonomous-suturing work exists only as research demos on da Vinci hardware, not as shipped product. It is enterprise B2B equipment sold to hospitals at multi-million-dollar per-system prices; there is no consumer price.

ROSA

Zimmer Biomet's ROSA (Robotic Surgical Assistant) is a single articulated robotic arm coupled to optical navigation and 2D/3D planning software, and the mid-size, cross-domain archetype of the orthopedic sub-cohort: it spans orthopedics and neurosurgery. The arm positions and guides instruments but moves only on surgeon command; it does not cut or place autonomously (AI-augmented, surgeon-controlled).

Current Zimmer Biomet variants are ROSA Knee (total knee arthroplasty, imageless X-Atlas workflow, cleared January 25, 2019; 'ROSA Knee with OptimiZe' cleared November 14, 2025), ROSA Hip (direct-anterior total hip arthroplasty specifically, cleared August 18, 2021), ROSA ONE Brain (cranial neurosurgery: biopsy, SEEG, DBS, and endoscopy, cleared February 11, 2019), and ROSA Shoulder (cleared February 2024). Made by Zimmer Biomet (NYSE: ZBH).

Two cap-flags: ROSA Spine is not a current Zimmer Biomet variant (it left in the 2022 ZimVie spinoff), and Zimmer Biomet's autonomy ambitions run through its separate Monogram acquisition, not ROSA. As enterprise B2B surgical equipment, there is no consumer price.