Recent reviews have comprehensively covered the state of the art, focusing on materials , propulsion mechanisms , and applications in biomedicine , sensing , and the environment . This perspective aims to spark discussion on the challenges, opportunities, and future directions in the field. material and configuration, along with setups, and microfluidic devices that offer full control over the systems. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) and computational tools are now accessible to explore and resolve questions that were previously beyond reach. Although regulatory and ethical considerations are progressing faster than ever (albeit not as swiftly as desired), this field is nearing in vivo and patient-based applications. Along with remarkable opportunities, comes a myriad of challenges. Addressing these will require multidisciplinary collaborations among physicists, chemists, engineers, biologists, and medical practitioners. "micromotors", "nanobots", "nanorobots", "microrobots", "self-propelled particles", or "artificial swimmers", as indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) from 1900 to the present. The dashed lines connect representative papers to their respective publication years.