Is Cognex a public company?
Yes. Cognex Corporation is a public company. Its common stock trades on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker CGNX.
What Cognex does
Cognex makes machine vision systems, vision software and barcode readers that locate, identify, inspect and measure parts on production lines and in distribution centers. Its annual report for 2025 says the company was founded in 1981. Its headquarters are in Natick, Massachusetts, and its shares trade on Nasdaq under the symbol CGNX.
Revenue was $994 million in 2025, up 9% from 2024. Logistics, packaging, consumer electronics and automotive together made up about 85% of revenue, and customers outside the United States about 67%. Cognex had 2,745 employees at the end of 2025, 575 of them in research, development and engineering.
Its products range from low-cost vision sensors for presence checks to deep learning systems for defect detection, character reading and classification. In 2025 it launched OneVision, a cloud platform for training AI vision models and deploying them on Cognex cameras, and SLX devices for logistics. Cognex says it holds over 1400 issued and pending patents (company-reported).
In 2023 Cognex bought Moritex, a Japanese maker of optical components, for an enterprise value of about $270 million, its largest acquisition to date. With Moritex it began making lenses and lighting in its own plants in China and Vietnam.
Products
In-Sight vision systems and sensors
Cognex describes them as its 2D and 3D smart-camera vision systems and vision sensors, for part location, identification, measurement, assembly verification and robot guidance. They use rule-based tools as well as deep learning and edge learning based on pre-trained neural network models.
OneVision
Cognex describes it as a cloud-based platform, launched in 2025, for building, training and scaling AI vision applications, with model training on multi-GPU clusters and deployment to Cognex In-Sight devices at the edge.
VisionPro
Vision software for use with third-party cameras and frame grabbers: a library of rule-based and deep learning vision tools, with the QuickBuild flowchart environment for building applications.
DataMan barcode readers
Fixed-mount and handheld image-based barcode readers and barcode verifiers that read 1D, 2D, label-based and direct part mark codes.
Vision accessories
Area scan and line scan cameras, lenses, lighting, vision controllers, frame grabbers and I/O cards. Its lens and lighting range grew with the acquisition of Moritex in 2023.