What cleaning robots are doing in buildings right now
Autonomous vacuums and scrubbers are the most-shipped commercial robots. A robot is slower than a person per pass — its case is unattended hours — and only part of a typical floor suits it.
6Jobs robots do for a building today
7Independent deployment records behind this page
1 of 7Records that document a pause, removal or failure
1Jobs we advise against
Tick the jobs you want a robot to take
Each card shows how mature the job isClean corners, edges, toilets and spills
Every field study leaves corners, edges, toilets and spills to people.
We won't rank robots for this job
Where this does not work — read before you enquire
- Only about half the floor suits a robot. Edges, corners, furniture, thresholds and narrow runs stay manual — and the contract is priced on the whole scope.
- Slower than a person, per pass. The case is unattended hours, never speed — robots are markedly slower, especially on carpet.
- Small, cluttered floors do not pay. Below a few hundred square metres an hour of throughput, the numbers do not work.
- Bumper stops need a person nearby. “Unattended” means no one cleaning, not no one on site.
- Daytime runs halve the benefit. Every measured gain came from night or off-hours runs.
- Expecting headcount to fall automatically. Operators have retrained cleaners as robot operators rather than cutting them; claims of big crew cuts come from vendors. Our advice
Unlabelled points come from operator-reported or independently observed deployments.
Built on 7 independent deployment records. Robot prices are vendor or reseller list figures and vary by market — confirm with the vendor.