The Promise of Robotics for Filling the Labor and Elderly Caregiver Gaps

Thursday - May 4 2023, 07:24 UTC - 1 year ago

Robotics presents a set of possible solutions with the potential to fill gaps in both labor and elderly care, with competitors vying for a share of the market. These range from Tesla Teslabot, SanctuaryAI and Figure.ai, to Xiaomi’s CyberOne, Agility Robotics Digit, and Boston Dynamics military-grade robots, with a need amounting to 3-5 million humanoid robots in the USA alone by 2030. AI is at the core of the robotics industry, making continued innovation key for a successful robotic industry and the capability of bridging the labor and elderly care gaps.

The world is changing, and the demand for automated labor is greater than ever before. The global labor gap, now estimated at around 39.9 million people according to GS Research, will continue to widen in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as an aging population’s increasing reliance on home-care services for elderly family members. It is into this context that robotics enters the conversation, presenting a set of possible solutions with the potential to fill gaps in both labor and elderly care.

GS Research has an upside scenario where product design, use case, technology, affordability and wide public acceptance are completely overcome. Goldman Sachs Research sees a market of up to US$154bn by 2035 in a blue-sky scenario, a number which could expand to an even larger market with additional labor assistance, should robots be made affordable and user-friendly enough to spread beyond the industrial and commercial settings in which they are typically employed today. This larger market penetration would fill from 48% to 126% of the labor gap, and as much as 53% of the elderly caregiver gap. By 2030, this will mean a need for 3-5 million humanoid robots in the USA alone, and the rise of humanoid robots is already taking shape, with competitors like Tesla Teslabot, SanctuaryAI, Figure.ai, Engineering Arts Ameca robot, Xiaomi’s CyberOne, Agility Robotics Digit, Boston Dynamics, 1X Technologies and others vying for a share of the market.

Tesla Teslabot and Engineering Arts’ Ameca robot are both relatively inexpensive, retail-oriented bots. The Ameca promises to be able to recognize voice commands, learn, and respond to facial expressions, while the Teslabot has a variety of uses, from helping with housework to providing entertainment to its user. SanctuaryAI is a bit more expensive, at around $2,000, and is a direct-to-consumer robot designed to be a helper for the elderly. Figure.ai is, essentially, a delivery robot capable of navigating complex 3D environments completely on its own. Xiaomi, meanwhile, has made the CyberOne, the first truly autonomous humanoid robot engineered by the Chinese smartphone giant. On the other end of the spectrum is Boston Dynamics’ military-grade robots, which are used for data gathering, reconnaissance, and other related activities.

But the real test of a successful robotics industry is the ability to continue innovating, and this is just the beginning. 1X Technologies got $23M from OpenAI, the multi-billion dollar company behind ChatGPT and GPT-4. AI is at the core of the robotics industry, and as the technology continues to evolve, so too will the field of robotics. With the right investments and innovative ideas, the potential exists to bridge the labor and elderly care gaps with the help of robotics and AI.