Zhidongxi (public account: zhidxcom)
Author | Xia Sheyu
Editor | Xu Shan
Zhidongxi reported on August 15 that recently, Abate De Mey, founder of the robot and machine learning recruitment platform Fluid Dev, had an online interview with Brady Watkins, president of SoftBank Robotics America (SBRA). The conversation lasted 30 minutes, involving the current status and development of the robot industry, the catalytic effect of the epidemic on clean robots, labor transformation, SoftBank Robotics’ goals and vision.
SoftBank Robotics was founded in 2012, and in 2015 it released the humanoid intelligent robot Pepper. So far, SoftBank Robot has set up offices in North America, Tokyo, San Francisco , Boston , Shanghai and other places. SBRA is a North American branch of SoftBank Robots and one of the few branches with the SoftBank name. Brady Watkins' operations in North America have enabled SoftBank's smart indoor robot Whiz to sell 20,000 units worldwide, realizing the commercialization of Whiz.
Brady Watkins said that in recent years, the manufacturing cost of robots has been reduced due to technological advances, and the supply chain of robots has become increasingly perfect. He said that the robot market is currently in a critical stage of growth, and this market will have rapid growth in the next 5-10 years. In addition, he also talked about the epidemic that accelerated the automation process of the cleaning industry and created better conditions for intelligent cleaning robots.
Without going against the original intention, Zhidongxi has compiled the interview completely. The following is the transcript of the interview:
1. The robot market is at a critical point, and it will usher in strong growth in the next 5-10 years
Abate: Please introduce yourself first.
Brady Watkins: OK, my name is Brady Watkins, I am the president of Softbank Robotics America. Our company is one of the few companies with the SoftBank name and part of the entire SoftBank ecosystem, and we hope to bring value to humans through commercial robotic solutions.
Brady Watkins
Abate: What opportunity did you enter the field of robots?
Brady Watkins: There are two main reasons for this. The first is that I have been very interested in robot toys like Transformers since I was a child. The second is because there are many engineers among my relatives. I grew up in a business environment and always wanted to work in the business field. So when there was a very good opportunity about five or six years ago, I joined the robotics field.
I think the robot industry is a very interesting industry. We are still in the early stages of industry development, and this industry will continue to maintain rapid growth. And, we are currently standing at the intersection of hardware and software in the robot industry.
Abate: Yes, that's a good point. Robots are a field that combines many different technologies. ICRA 2022 (International Conference on Robotics Technology and Automation) has just ended, and we can also see that foot-type robots are improving every year. They used to fall down and were very clumsy when walking, but now they can explore independently in the cave.
Brady Watkins: Yes. And now the cost of robot manufacturing has also been reduced. lidar is a good example. Its cost five years ago was 10 times that of now. Our technology is constantly developing, the cost of parts is constantly decreasing, and the supply chain is becoming more and more perfect. Therefore, I think we are at a critical point in the development of the robot market and can see that this market will have some rapid growth in the next 5-10 years.
You can compare this to the SAAS (Software-as-a-Service) market. If you have some understanding of SAAS, you will know that SAAS needs to invest a lot of capital in the first five years of its inception to create many algorithms and libraries, which may not be adopted. But around the fifth year after SAAS's development, SAAS ushered in a turning point, with its adoption rate soaring instantly, and SAAS's revenue reached US$1 billion to US$12 billion.
2. Improve the efficiency of repetitive tasks and clean robots to liberate labor
Abate: Can you explain the goals and values of SoftBank robots?
Brady Watkins: In fact, our first goal is to create value for mankind. But the key question is, how do we use robots and artificial intelligence technologies to create value for humans? The product that best reflects our philosophy in is the intelligent cleaning robot Whiz, which is an vacuum cleaner that can move indoors independently.
Whiz can provide a complete cleaning solution that frees humans from repeated cleaning labor. Whiz can be cleaned at any time of the day, and it can automatically clean the room while you are out for a run.
SoftBank’s intelligent cleaning robot Whiz
For hotels, using smart cleaning robots like Whiz will bring them better business income. When guests see the hotel using cleaning robots to clean, they will agree with the hotel's service. They will think: "Wow, this hotel is investing in technology, they are really committed to improving the customer experience. And, intelligent cleaning robot can improve the cleaning efficiency of hotel employees and allow hotels with small employees to serve more customers , which are all conducive to increasing the orders of the hotel business.
Abate: Are there any examples of integrating robot technology and labor?
Brady Watkins: We stripped individual tasks from the clean ecosystem, and let the robots automate individual tasks, allowing people who were originally engaged in this job to complete other tasks, thereby promoting labor transformation. Intelligent robots can undertake boring work that users don’t want to do . I think cleaning with robots like vacuum cleaner is one of the biggest manual compensation solutions so that users can do something they are interested in.
Intelligent robots can solve the problem of repeating single tasks for people, improve the efficiency of task completion, and free people from monotonous and boring work. intelligent robots are not limited to cleaning robots, but also restaurant delivery robots, which may expand to more application areas in the future.
3. The global scale of the cleaning industry is US$50 billion, and the epidemic has caused the demand for cleaning robots to surge
Brady Watkins: The global market size of the cleaning industry has reached US$50 billion , and is one of the largest service industries in the world. This industry provides a large number of jobs for the global working population.
epidemic has created a good opportunity for intelligent robots to enter the cleaning industry . Cleaning robots can improve the efficiency of cleaning work and improve labor shortage. But there are not many people who actually use cleaning robots, because people generally do not associate advanced technology with cleaning services. 94% of employers in the world want to improve the efficiency of cleaning work. , but only 50% of employers have really done this.
Abate: Yes, the epidemic has been two years since the epidemic started. I have been to hotels that only opened some floors of the hotel because they did not have enough employees to clean the rooms. The employees are even discussing whether there is a need to clean the rooms every day. The epidemic has caused a severe labor shortage, which has led to a strong demand for automated robotics in the cleaning industry. How will this affect the design of the robot companies for product?
SoftBank Robot NAO
Brady Watkins: The epidemic is a key factor. Many companies in the cleaning industry fired employees because of this, and after losing their cleaning jobs, they find other jobs. They may not be willing to come back to do simple and repetitive tasks such as cleaning, so the demand for cleaning robots will be further increased.
But this is a major trend in the development of the cleaning industry, and the epidemic has only catalyzed this process. People have always hoped that the efficiency of the labor force can be improved. The general method they took is to recruit more people and expand the scale of the labor force. But the cost of doing this is very high, so people turned to hope that technology can help them solve this problem and let robots work together with humans . In this way, we can improve the labor value of employees, let them do more valuable work, and ensure they have a safe working environment.
Abate: Yes. After the use of intelligent cleaning robots increases, fewer people are engaged in cleaning work, which can reduce the risk of transmission of epidemics and infectious diseases and improve the safety of the labor environment. At the same time, this can liberate more labor and allow more people to do other valuable and meaningful things, such as architecture and education.
Brady Watkins: And I think that for the workforce in the cleaning industry, smart robots are not an unattainable advanced technology, but something they can use, understand and consume.
4. The design takes into account the needs of 20,000 people. SoftBank says that the market size is large enough to succeed
Abate: SoftBank robots seize market demand and produce products. So how do you think these robots can meet customer needs as much as possible and bring them to the market?
Brady Watkins: We will first consider the production scale. You also know that unlike startups, our goal in is not to think about the needs of the top 10 or top 20 users, but to consider the needs of the top 20,000 users. We have to clarify our positioning, what we can provide, and how what we provide creates commercial value.
When designing a robot, we must first ensure its security, because it lives in the same room with humans. Secondly, we will ensure its data security and appearance are beautiful. After we put robots into the market, we can obtain more feedback on product data through large-scale customer experience and adoption, and then upgrade and adjust it on this basis.
Abate: Small companies and large companies have different views on developing products. Small companies may take a small sample and then iterate quickly to build several different small products. Large companies may use a larger number of samples to understand product needs and design products. What are these data for a large company like SoftBank? What is the decision-making process for your product design?
Brady Watkins: Yes, the way to build products between large companies and small companies is indeed different. I think this is not only reflected in the amount of data, but also in business research. I think that from a business perspective, companies must have a large enough market to succeed. There are two benefits to the large-scale market of . The first is that there is a return on funds, which can prove that the capital invested in was reasonable. The second is that there is enough feedback data. In fact, many of the iterative designs of the product are adjusted based on the data research of market feedback. This is a challenge for small companies, and small companies also face early-stage capital challenges.
SoftBank Robot Pepper
5. Invest in startup Brain OS, SoftBank builds robot ecosystem
Abate: How do you improve the maturity of the technology required to build products?
Brady Watkins: If a startup has some advanced technologies in the field of robotics, then we can absorb these advanced technologies to accelerate the technological research and development process. For example, the startup Brain OS can cooperate with many software companies to focus on robot control systems and platforms. With Brain OS's platform, you can make robots move more securely.
I think data is a key prerequisite for understanding technology. Startups like Brain OS have advanced technology stacks that we can use to speed up our project process.
Abate: SoftBank pulls them into the SoftBank ecosystem by investing in these companies, right? In this way, you formed an ecosystem, and these companies have built interrelated technologies to some extent. I wonder if I understand it correctly?
Brady Watkins: Yes. But these companies don’t always need investment, sometimes they also require business capabilities, markets or other things, each situation is unique. These companies can even work with our corporate clients and integrate their customer base into the ecosystem.
These companies are our partners and sometimes they even own minority stakes. The principle we invest in these companies is to make sure they can bring something valuable to SoftBank in the market.They not only need R&D technology, but also mature products and markets.
Pepper and Masayoshi Son
Abate: Yes, this is the obvious difference between startups in the robotics field and big companies like SoftBank.
Brady Watkins: There are many private equity and venture capital institutions that have invested in robot companies. With these capital investments, startups will not lack funds, and they have better conditions to develop technologies and products. And SoftBank has discovered some cool products and companies that have developed cool technologies and powerful ways of thinking, and we are excited about it.
We do not consider these companies to be competitive with SoftBank, we believe they are our partners. When considering investment, we ask them some questions, such as: What is your business model? What are your thoughts on business research? What tools are needed to succeed?
startups must understand data, they must have an architecture that can absorb model or partner data. In addition, they should focus on product-market fit, ensuring their technical reliability, and we can help them commercialize at the right speed and help them scale out. I think that's what we really help to startups.
You also know that any startup has good ideas. However, this is far from enough, they must understand the supply chain, cost and profit related to the robotics field. SoftBank’s large-scale market has created an ecosystem, which has spawned a scalable business model that can effectively reduce risks.
SoftBank's ecosystem not only has these startups, but also distributors and partners, and these people will benefit from SoftBank's ecosystem.
6. Investment is still not saturated, and the robot investment market will grow strongly within 2-3 years
Abate: However, due to the current global economic recession, people believe that the risk of investing in robotics technology is very high at this time. What do you think about this?
Brady Watkins: According to last year's data, we have not seen investments in vertical fields such as robot companies reach saturation. I don't think we are at the saturation point, and I expect investments will still enter this field. Because there is always a large gap in the labor force, some companies realize warehouse automation through warehouse delivery robots, but this is far from enough. There is still a lot of demand for automation, so I think there is still a lot of room for growth in the investment field of robot companies.
And, I think the investment market of service robot will have strong growth in the next 2-3 years. The fields of robot services, robot technology, robot logistics and other fields in this market will expand. I still think capital can gather in this market. One of the big advantages of investing in robotics is that it is a predictable slope. If you know the adoption rate data and solve the product market fit problem, then you can predict trends and results on this investment ramp. Now the market has a stronger demand for intelligent robots, and more companies are participating in investing in this field. Although there are few successful products on the market at present, more successful products will appear in the future. All you need to do is choose the right products in the right company.
SoftBank Robot NAO
Conclusion: Promote labor transformation and how much room is to imagine the cleaning robot market?
In this interview, Brady Watkins mentioned that the biggest highlight of cleaning robots is that they can efficiently complete individual tasks, liberate labor, and promote labor transformation. Moreover, under the epidemic environment, the global demand for indoor cleaning robots has surged.
According to the latest research report released by research institution Grand View Research, due to the impact of the epidemic, various service industries have problems such as employee shortage, increased labor costs, increased demand for contactless services, and ensuring indoor safe and sanitary environment. In this case, the demand for indoor commercial service robots is growing rapidly.
In addition, Brady Watkins also mentioned that the current robot market is still in its early stages of development. He expects this market to usher in strong growth in the next 5-10 years. The development prospects of this market are very good, and there is also a lot of capital continuing to enter.
Cleaning industry is one of the largest service industries in the world, with a market value of US$50 billion. To what extent can the cleaning robot market cover this market? Let's wait and see.
Original link: https://robhub.org/softbank-how-large-companies-approach-robotics/
Source: Robohub
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-