Changing my mind: from B2C to B2B
Last week, Robotic Business Review issued its annual report about personal robotics. They seem to think that 2015 will be the big year for this, because consumers are now supposed to be ready.
On this image, when you look at what people expect a personal robot to do, the approach is very rational.
According to it, the first thing people want is not to have to deal with technical stuff (understand voice, self maintenance, remote diagnosis, updates and even full autonomy) nor with a toy (fully programmable). The level of expectation is terms of user experience is definitely really high. Potential buyers want to deal with something that is beyond technology.
Than people want the robot to accomplish tasks for them (monitoring/alarm, security, surveillance, control center for the home, domestic services). We're focused on "cold" tasks and usefulness. This is not surprising, because that's the easiest way for a consumer to evaluate the return on investment on the robot.
It's only after that that we get to the right side of the brain. That's where we have items like conversational speech, entertainment, emotions and personality. Does it mean that we're wrong at Aldebaran with our focus on emotions? Or is it just that we can trust people? Remember Henry Ford ? :)
I don't know who are the people answering the poll, but I think that most of the people do not realize what can already be done by and with robots. And we're still kind of afraid of them. They'll take our jobs after all :) So the way I see it could be:
I won't make no effort in their direction (not to have to deal with technical stuff)
Ill keep control and they'll have to prove me they're useful (accomplish tasks)
then maybe Ill accept and trust them (getting personal)
Judging ratings go from 0 to 5, we can see that there's no item below 2.5 in the list. So, if we change the scale, starting from 2.5 to 5, we got the average at 3.75. It means that all the items related to the right side of the brain are below average.
We can also notice from this poll that the robot needs to be connected (control through the internet, connexion with other devices, fully programmable). But we're in the era of everything-is-a-platform, so that's no surprise.
I also notice less interest for domestic services (41% to 30% judging it really important). I wonder how this is linked to announcements such as Jibo for example. We'll have to pay attention to that.
Anyway, even if these results are interesting to discuss, Im in fact less and less convinced of the real interest of focusing first on the consumer market.
SoftBank, from my point of view, has a really smart approach (in a country that is culturally ready for robots!): get people used to robots with the B2B market (robots in SB shops, robots for Nestlé) before opening the B2C market.
We should learn from that. Im maybe to focused on developers myself, but for them, and if it's about making a living, I don't see this happen in a close future thanks to a consumer market. On the contrary, I believe there's money to make with companies. They'll need dedicated apps. And Im not sure they'll make them themselves in every case.
In retail, in events, in schools, in hospitals. I think we'll see robots in these places before they hit our homes. We'll want them at home because we'll see how useful they are in these contexts.