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Robots are increasingly required to work closely with different people in diverse tasks. The success of such human–robot collaboration will hinge on shared alignment across capabilities, tasks and timing — and communication will be key to achieving this. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access options Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription $32.99 / 30 days cancel any time Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles $119.00 per year only $9.92 per issue Buy this article - Purchase on SpringerLink - Instant access to the full article PDF. USD 39.95 Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Subjects References Chung, T. H., Orekhov, V. & Maio, A. Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 6, 477–502 (2023). Riley, D. G. & Frew, E. W. J. Hum. Robot Interact. 12, 40 (2023). Liu, Y. et al. Adv. Intell. Syst. 6, 2300268 (2024). Adams, J. A., Scholtz, J. & Sciarretta, A. Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 7, 149–173 (2024). Robinson, N. et al. J. Hum. Robot Interact. 14, 8 (2024). Senaratne, H. et al. J. Hum. Robot Interact. 15, 5 (2025). Nikolaidis, S., Zhu, Y. X., Hsu, D. & Srinivasa, S. In Proc. 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human–Robot Interaction 2017 294–302 (IEEE, 2017). Jiang, Y., Sikka, P., Tian, L., Kulić, D. & Paris, C. In Proc. Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation 2025 95–104 (ARAA, 2025). Backman, K., Kulić, D. & Chung, H. ACM Trans. Hum. Robot Interact. 14, 37 (2025). Katuwandeniya, K., Tian, L. & Kulić, D. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 10, 3222–3229 (2025). Roy, L., Croft, E. A., Ramirez, A. & Kulić, D. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 11, 4561–4568 (2026). Nikolaidis, S., Kwon, M., Forlizzi, J. & Srinivasa, S. Trans. Hum. Robot Interact. 7, 22 (2018). Sakr, M. et al. ACM Trans. Hum. Robot Interact. 14, 74 (2025). Sakr, M., Zhang, J., Loos, H. F. M. Vd, Kulić, D. & Croft, E. ACM Trans. Hum. Robot Interact. 15, 34 (2025). Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Rights and permissions About this article Cite this article Kulić, D., Senaratne, H., Howard, D. et al. Human–robot teams depend on alignment. Nat Electron (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-026-01683-4 Published: Version of record: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-026-01683-4