The robot market has good data, but why is the reality so bleak?

Previously, McKinsey Global Institute released a data - by 2030, approximately 70% of companies will adopt at least one type of artificial intelligence, and a large proportion of large enterprises will use a full range of technologies; in addition, artificial intelligence may bring an additional $13 trillion in global economic activity.

Among them, as a combination of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, the development of the robotics industry has always been the focus of attention from both inside and outside the industry.

Judging from the data, the situation of the robot industry is very good

In recent years, the saying that "robots will replace humans" has always existed, and some data reports and the actions of representative companies seem to verify this indirectly. According to the "China Intelligent Customer Service Industry Research Report" released in May last year, customer service robots are replacing manual customer service work at a ratio of 40%-50%. Last year, Terry Gou, chairman of Hon Hai Group, said that he plans to replace 80% of human workers with robots in the next 5-10 years...

With the disclosure of market data and the leading role of enterprises, the controversy surrounding this statement has intensified. As can be seen with the naked eye, more and more robots are appearing in commercial public places such as airports, hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls, and the overall robot industry is also rising with the successive launch of products.

According to statistics, the global robot industry market size exceeded US$29.82 billion in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 28.5%. The industrial robot market size was US$16.82 billion, the service robot market size was US$9.25 billion, and the special robot market size was US$3.75 billion.

Looking at the domestic market, the scale of the robot market in 2018 was US$8.74 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39.2%. Among them, the scale of the service robot market was US$1.84 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 43.9%, which is much higher than the global market.

At the same time, as of 2018, Ecovacs' listing gave birth to the "first service robot stock in the A-share market" in China; there are 65 robot industrial parks under construction or completed in the country, concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; domestic and foreign conferences such as ICRA, IROS, ROBIO, and the World Robot Conference are also held one after another...

It can be said that judging from last year's statistics and some developments of the government and enterprises alone, the robotics industry is thriving and has achieved good growth and progress compared to 2017.

However, behind all the good momentum there are always a few discordant voices.

Robots are chased by capital while being dismissed by customers

In the past, due to the needs of cost control and profit improvement, more and more companies are focusing on robots, either investing or purchasing, or even directly building factories to manufacture robots. Taking investment as an example, relevant data shows that the number of financings in the Chinese robotics field reached 109 in 2017, and the number of financings in the first half of 2018 reached 63. It should not be difficult to exceed the performance of 2017.

However, while people are cheering for the booming robot industry, some robots that were originally expected to be successful have been driven out of their jobs by their employers:

What’s worse, some robots have been “permanently expelled” from the market, such as Rethink Robotics, one of the pioneers of collaborative robots, and the “kuri” robot project under Mayfield Robotics, a home robot manufacturer. These companies announced their bankruptcy in 2018.

The market situation is obviously very good, so why are robots, which are expected to replace humans in the future, also having a hard time? What is the reason for this contrast?

Is it possible that there is no demand in the market?

Previously, when Magneto.com was interviewing Zhang Tao, the founder and CEO of Purdue Robotics, they talked about the dismissal of robots by Japan's Strange Hotel. From the perspective of "delivery robots", he clearly pointed out that the market for hotel room delivery is not very large-scale, nor is it a rigid demand.

Rigid demand is already a commonplace issue when talking about the implementation of robots, but it is still worth people's careful consideration.

In this regard, the home service robot Kuri, which has been declared bankrupt, is a vivid example. It took 1 year and 9 months from its launch to its fame, to the suspension of production and the announcement of bankruptcy. The bankruptcy of this company indirectly reflects the difficulties of home service robots.

At present, most home service robots have similar functions. Compared with smart speakers, these robots, which have no breakthroughs and innovations and are relatively expensive, cannot gain favor among consumers. After this, the only way to save them is the principle of "entertainment first", such as cooperating with classic IPs. In other words, in the current market, these robots do not scratch the real itch of users and arouse their desire to buy.

In addition, from some aspects, "demand" also needs to be developed. For example, the diamond brand De Beers, its founder Oppenheimer magnified the "hardness" of diamonds and linked it with love to "educate" men and women, thus triggering their desire for loyalty and eternity, and a new demand was born.

For example, Rethink Robotics, which announced its bankruptcy, did not have a market demand for its collaborative robots? In fact, there was a demand, but it was still very small and not enough to form a tornado. Therefore, this demand has not been fully opened, and the market development speed lags far behind the product technology research and development process, which ultimately leads to the failure to meet market expectations.

In terms of demand, it has always existed in the market. If the robot cannot keep its job well, it can only be said that it has not found/dug out the real rigid demand, or that its approach to targeting the rigid demand is wrong.

Or is the technology not up to standard?

Regarding service robots, one of the branches of robots, Zhang Dianli, founder and CEO of Fulaiwei Intelligent Robot, once proposed "three matches". To sum it up simply, if you want to do a good job in service robots, you need to match the scene with the maturity of the technology, the team's ability with the market expectations, and the rigid demand with your own technical level.

Among these, the volatility of scenarios and rigid demands will not be very large. The key lies in whether the team's capabilities and technology can meet the rigid demands of the market instead of being a drag.

In this regard, the approach of many companies can be described in one sentence: "If you don't have the skills, don't take on the job." It is better to be down-to-earth.

For example, the supermarket shopping guide robot "Fabio" mentioned above was fired after one week on the job. According to the expectations of the supermarket manager, Fabio would be able to answer customers' questions and guide them to the items they are looking for, or even attract customers to try the products. However, the facts slapped it in the face. During its official tenure, "Fabio" did not do anything well, such as not being able to accurately identify customers' questions, or leading them in the wrong direction, or only attracting 2 customers every 15 minutes, which was far lower than human employees, who could attract 12 employees every 15 minutes.

Compared with human employees, "Fabio" is obviously unqualified. Similarly, compared with the general level of robots, "Fabio" has not reached the passing line.

As we all know, functions such as information inquiry and navigation positioning rely on technologies such as voice recognition, semantic understanding, computer vision, and lidar. For scenes with relatively simple map structures such as supermarkets and hotels, such "imperfections" should be avoidable for robots and even a small case. However, the facts are surprising.

Strictly speaking, it's not just "Fabio". Many robots on the market also have varying degrees of "mental retardation" problems in this regard. The root cause is that robot service providers have not been able to do a good job in basic technology research and development, so that their technical strength cannot meet the needs well.

In this case, even if the robot finds the real demand point, it can only throw up its hands. Even if it starts with a good hand, it will eventually turn it into a bad hand. Replacing humans is even more impossible.

at last

It is undeniable that the market prospects of robots are brilliant, but this does not represent the true level of robots, even if the latter perform well in some scenes with monotonous work content. For robots, they need to truly capture the tens of billions of dollars market.

As far as general market rules are concerned, the most important two points are rigid demand and means. How to identify rigid demand scenarios and use appropriate technology to meet rigid demand is the key to robots winning the multi-billion dollar market, and it is also the core of making data "equivalent" to actual market conditions.