A pneumatic gripper is a specific type of pneumatic actuator that typically involves either parallel or angular motion of surfaces, the gripper can be used as part of a ''pick and place'' system that will allow a component to be picked up and placed elsewhere during the manufacturing process.

Some grippers act directly on the object they are gripping based on the force of the air pressure supplied to the gripper, while others will use a mechanism such as a gear or toggle to leverage the amount of force applied to the object being gripped. Grippers can also vary in terms of the opening size, the amount of force that can be applied, and the shape of the gripping surfaces—frequently called ''tooling jaws or fingers''. They can be used to pick up everything from very small items (a transistor or chip for a circuit board, for example) to very large items, such as an engine block for a car. Grippers are frequently added to industrial robots in order to allow the robot to interact with other objects.