Could This Be America’s “VolksKobot”?
Like the legendary Volkswagen “Beetle”, Standard Bot’s “un-pricey” and practical AI-enhanced cobot might well be the everyman tool that hardworking SMEs have long awaited
“We’re on a mission to make advanced, adaptable robots accessible to all.”
-Evan Beard, Co-founder and CEO
Democratizing cobots
Anyone who reads Asian Robotics Review knows of our 7-year search for a cobot that will fulfill the needs of affordability, ease of use, and utility for SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises).
We are on the hunt to find a cobot that fulfills the dream of its Danish inventors, which was specifically to democratize robots for the little guy. In short, an advanced, inexpensive mini-robot that’s easy to use. They named it the cobot.
Such a cobot loosely approximates to what the Volkswagen “Beetle” meant to decades of drivers: reliable transportation that was cheap to acquire and could fit with any small-to-medium-size business. These days, SMEs number about 400 million worldwide. Yes, 400 million SMEs is a very large number for a target audience.
Studies have shown that a reasonable percentage of those SMEs could well use a cobot to help out, yet not much outreach has been forthcoming to sell into this potential mass of cobot buyers.
SEE ALSO: The Problem with Cobots
Well, Let’s Start with Sales
With the advent of prompting using GenAI, complexity of deployment and during operation has now been mostly eliminated for SMEs, which could go a long way at encouraging small business owners to reevaluate and take a serious look.
SMEs are in general regarded as a hard sell. On average, only 3 out 10 SME owners attend robot or automation events or tradeshows, which makes outreach to them akin to selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Plus, vendor CFOs are not particularly keen on onsie-twosie sales that take a long time to close.
Out of some 50 or so cobot developers, we have found two to date that we qualify as great cobots for SMEs: 1. The Chinese-built Elite for the quality of its engineering and build, its extensive R&D support, and its ease of use (Elite CS63 is $18,000); and 2. The German-built igus ReBel, which is a solid performer for, get this, $7,500!
Now comes the volkskobot!
Sliding into view this week with a pocket full of recent VC cash ($63 million) is newbie cobot vendor Standard Bots (founded in 2011) in the U.S. Yes, America, now has its very own cobot developer (Glen Cove, New York); a company that is promising “a breakthrough in robotics” for the little guy, with a price tag they claim is better than the competition (price online at Motion World for $37,000 plus a boatload of free extras). Plus, there’s even a rental option.
Among the VC’s who ponied up the investment include 468 Capital, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, General Catalyst, Lightscape Partners, and Samsung NEXT Ventures.
So, what makes Standard Bots and its cobot arm so special?
David Golden, co-founder of Standard Bots, said in a recent company news release: “Robotics is having its ChatGPT moment. New advances in AI allow robots to ‘understand’ and react to actions in real time, which means they can take on more complex jobs.
“Looking ahead, we’re focused on expanding our product line and pioneering new applications for AI-based robotics in industries previously untouched by this technology.”
That sounds good. It’s exactly what is needed.
Evan Beard, also a co-founder, as well as CEO, commented in the same press release: “Historically, robotics projects required a team of PhDs, multiple years of research, and deep pockets—and even after all that, use cases were often limited.
“We’re on a mission to make advanced, adaptable robots accessible to all. Standard Bots makes it easy for any company, from small mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies, to harness the power of robotics.”
All of which is similar to what most other cobot developers are doing: Getting GenAI into the cobot product line ASAP.
With the advent of GenAI and its convergence with robotics, it’s literally back to the starting line for all cobot developers. Whether one is Universal Robots, today’s clear market leader and cobot founding company, or newbie Standard Bots, slimly represented in the cobot space, the situation is identical. All bets are off in the new race for AI-driven cobot leadership. The late Clayton Christensen and his The Innovator’s Dilemma would have had a field day with the dark horse of GenAI disrupting the entire robot/cobot industry.
If Standard Bots can reach the target audience of SMEs that all the other robot/cobot vendors have bypassed, it could vault itself into leadership very quickly.
The new kid on the block
Here’s what SiliconAngle had to say about Standard Bots’ RO1:
“Standard Bot’s flagship product is a $37,000 robotic arm called the RO1. It can lift up to 40 pounds and has a reach of about four feet. The RO1 comes with a portable base, which removes the need to embed the robot into a factory floor’s concrete floor and thereby reduces installation costs.
“Under the hood, the system ships with a built-in graphics processing unit. The RO1 uses the chip to run artificial intelligence models that allow it to complete tasks even in the face of unexpected challenges. The algorithms can maneuver the robotic arm around any objects that might be in its way, as well as adapt to production line changes.
“The RO1’s onboard AI also promises to ease the process of teaching the system new tasks. Historically, configuring a robotic arm to automate a new manufacturing workflow involved weeks or months of manual coding.
“The RO1 can be programmed through a no-code interface, which Standard Bots says reduces both the duration and cost of configuration changes.”
The robot is also capable of learning through demonstration. Workers can perform a certain task, such as welding together two components, in front of the RO1’s built-in camera and the onboard AI software will automatically learn to replicate the workflow. For customers who wish to program the robot in a more conventional manner, Standard Bots provides application programming interfaces that can be connected to custom code.”
It’ll be interesting to see what Standard Bots can do with its zest to compete, its AI-converged technology, and its awareness of the massive, global SME marketplace seeking to automate through well-priced, easy-to-program and operate cobots.
Here at Asian Robotics Review, we may just have encountered our cobot champion…at last!