J&J hopes the surgical robotic system it's developing in partnership with Google will be smarter, smaller, and cheaper than current models, such as Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Xi . that will combine its own medical technologies with Google's analytics to create a next-generation robotic-assisted surgical platform, and in its Q3 2015 earnings call October 13, worldwide chairman of medical devices Gary Pruden provided a few more details about what that platform will look like.