The Robot Revolution: AI, Autonomy & the Future of Cleaning | E12 – Hard Refresh – An ISSA Podcast

Sam. Welcome back, everyone, to another fantastic, amazing episode we've got prepared for you today on Hard Refresh. We got David Pin from Braincorp joining us. David, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining. Introduce yourself and we'll go ahead and kick this party off.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kaden and Karina for hosting me. It's a delight to be here. So my name is David Pyn. I'm the CEO of BrainCorp. BrainCorp is an AI robotics automation company focused on software to help facilities clean their facilities, better understand where their products are located. Basically make sure that the right product is in the right spot at the right price with a clean floor underneath. We've been in business for about 16 years and something that makes our business unique and special is that we partner with the existing floor cleaning industry. We're a software only player that works with the top names in the floor cleaning equipment equipment space and we help them turn their manual business into a robotics business.

Very cool. I was telling David right before we joined that this is one of the most asked about topics. So to have David on the podcast is huge. So I'm sure we're going to get a lot of questions and a lot of views from this, but we wanted to be. We started this kind of journey, Caden and I, with a survey to membership and the number one topic was robotics. So here we are.

Awesome.

Here we are. Well, David, before we kick off the show, we've usually done two truths and a and a lie. But since you are an avid user of AI a few episodes ago, Karina and I roasted ourselves live on the show. So we're gonna ask you to do the same and see what ChatGPT has to say about the infamous David pin.

All right, so. So I queued it up already and it's pretty brutal. I think my team will really get a kick out of this. You're the kind of guy who sends out a fire meme to Slack, then immediately refreshes to see how many flame emojis it gets. You call it culture, but let's be honest, it's just your inner finance bro, trying to cosplay as a cool startup. Dad. That's pretty rough, Karina.

Use bro just like mine.

I know. I love it when it says bro.

Like, you bet, David.

And I just must talk to it the same way.

He's my bro, so I think I use it all the time, basically to create little memes for the company. And part of our culture is, you know, try to keep it lighthearted when we have all Hands meetings. And so everyone's encouraged to step up their meme game. And, you know, so clearly it recognizes that maybe I'm a little bit. Try hard.

Oh, my gosh, that's hysterical. I love that you're going to have to share a meme somewhere on LinkedIn. Somewhere you have to send one of your most either reshared or fired emoji or memes so we can. We can laugh with you guys. That's super cool.

Thanks for being vulnerable. Right, on the show, David, we'll kick it off. Karina, I'm going to turn it over to you real quick to do some quick control on events, and then we'll dive into our topic today.

Let's go. Okay. Speaking of robotics, right, we have The CLX for June 24 is scheduled and it's on robotics. Funny enough, it is now live, so the registration link will be posted with this video. But we'll also obviously have it on the LinkedIn channel and we'll circulate it with membership gearing up for the business growth series. Kayden and I are going to be in Chicago June 10, and we're doing the what are you doing? Workshop. And it is on acquisition, retention and expansion. We do have a code. We will send it somewhere, somehow, somewhere you will get the code. And please come, please hang out with us. We're also doing a live podcast at the show, and we are going to be doing some pretty cool interviews with some BSCs from the BSC committee. So check those out. And then do check out the last episode of Hard Refresh, funded or fumbled with Brian Snell. I've gotten so many comments about the value of that podcast. Brian is incredibly smart and so grateful for his time and his perspective. And then the next show is with Rob Polecki from washi, so don't miss it, because that's gonna be a good one. All right. That's it.

That will be a good one.

Well, David, they're all good ones.

They're all good ones. This one's going to be the best one because David's here, so no pressure. Yeah. So, David, today's clearing the cash moment, right? We're headed for probably the fastest advancement of technology that the world has ever seen. Over the next few years, particularly, I mean, AIs got all of this heat and momentum of. Of where it's headed. But you combine AI and robotics, there's a lot of, you know, unknowns and scary stuff there that people. People think of iRobot and Will Smith and all of us having to become him for managing a world of robots. But the, the ideas that maybe today we talk about, we want full autonomy until we don't. And to kind of kick us off, let's talk about autonomy in robotics and the cleaning operations. Obviously, you're, you're, you're the brain behind these robotics with the software and things like that. So, you know, how does, how does Brain Corp define true autonomy and cleaning operations? And what misconceptions have you encountered in the development? I mean, you said 16 years in business. This has been established long before AI was cool in the last three years. So, you know, let's talk about this for a minute.

Absolutely. Well, it's a terrific question, Kaden, because I, you know, autonomy is a spectrum. And, you know, when you talk about full autonomy, my mind goes to the end state, which we are not at the end state yet, as you point out. We're all on a journey together for autonomy, the end state. And the vision, frankly, from our perspective, is full autonomy, right? It's a capability where the janitorial tasks, the entire scope of work is taken care of with robots autonomously. Between here and there, though, there are a lot of advancements that need to take place. Something that I think many who are new to the idea of automating floor care maybe aren't aware of is that there are still many manual processes that are required in order to achieve a clean floor. And it's a combination of autonomy and robotics with human effort. Just to give you one example. I mean, as you can imagine, a floor cleaning machine needs to be maintained, right? Every day you should maybe clear out the dirty water tank, you should dry out the squeegee, you should dry out the pads, maybe swap out pads, things like that. And those are not tasks that can be done with a robot yet today. And so there is, at this moment, a lot of human involvement that that takes place. Right? And so where we are at this very moment is that we're automating tasks, we're not automating jobs. And so we're focused on the dullest and the dirtiest tasks, right? And so that idea of just going up and down in cornrows, across, I don't know, a school gymnasium or a warehouse, you know, that's an extremely dull task that is better suited for robotics than it is suited for humans. And so we're focused on that kind of autonomy, recognizing that we have to create a solution that's going to be highly compatible with that interface between people and machines, right? Because we rely on human beings in Facilities where we operate to maintain the machines to ensure that they're operating properly. Essentially, the tool today is, it is a tool. It's a tool for the janitor to help them do their job more efficiently. It's not a replacement for the janitor.

I love that you said that. Go ahead, Krita. No, I was just going to say from a person, people perspective, right? This is one of the fears that we always get is, is this going to replace me? And I think when you use words like empower, enhance, right, it's not meant to replace you. It's supposed to empower, enhance and create a different mindset. When it comes to your point, David, of the way that janitors are performing their tasks, historically it's been very labor, extensive, right? So you're pushing machines, you're doing a lot of manual labor. But if you use this new approach or adapt it, it becomes more of like you can do other things that would allow you to improve your life and also empower the workforce in a different way and so making them feel and understand again. I've been in this industry for 14 years. My whole life I've cleaned buildings. I know what it's like to be on site and the fear that frontline team members, janitors, day porters, day cleaners, all of them have when it comes to technology. And so having it start off with that narrative, I think is super important. It's not meant to replace you. It's not made to get you to lose your job. It's meant to improve your life, empower you. And that's really with, I think, what we should push for within our industry. What do you think, Kayden?

Yeah, I mean, you think about, you know, the idea of a floor scrubber robot isn't anything crazy new as of this year, but yet the autonomy of it is still taking time to develop people for trusting it, the technology getting better to enhance its cleaning in and of itself. But we're still talking about large scale facilities, right? Big, wide open areas, that lot of ground to go, a lot of square footage. You know, how long before certain robots can handle tiny spaces. Getting into details beyond floor care, all of those other things, like there's still so much that human beings have to do. And you know, we're, we're quite a ways out from maybe that level of the iRobot moment. But you know, eventually I think, I think the world will get there. I'm a, I'm a believer that the world can get there. But yeah, this idea of floor care specifically so, so David, tell me about like the typical client that's embracing this technology. What size of facility, what kind of budget do they have and things like that.

Sure, yeah. So our largest customer is Walmart and Walmart happens to be the largest company on the planet, so it makes sense that they'd be our largest customer. You know, you think about the size and scale of a Walmart, right? So 4,000 square feet. I think some, some super centers can be 150,000 square feet. So these are really large facilities. We also clean every Sam's Club in the US as well. Right. And those facilities can be even larger. So as you point out, right. I mean as the technology matures, it becomes more and more applicable to smaller and smaller spaces. Right. So we got our start in, you know, think about the 50,000 square foot plus kind of facility with a big emphasis in industrial spaces, right? So those can be like a million square feet plus with like a tenant T16AMR. I mentioned about super centers, you know, that's applicable for like a T7AMR, right. So you just talk about different scrub deck widths that are appropriate for these facilities. That's really where it made sense from the beginning. And then over time, as the technology's matured, we go to smaller and smaller spaces. Right. So you know, today, you know, we'll clean, you know, like a neighborhood grocery store that could be down to like 20,000 square feet. Even 15,000 square feet makes sense for the technology. And you know, for us really it's all about creating that solution that makes sense from an ROI perspective and also makes sense from a workflow perspective where you're able to take, for example, an over tasked three person janitorial overnight crew and turn that into a two person overnight janitorial crew through the use of robotics. And then, you know, to your point about, you know, jobs and that side of things, I mean, typically that three person crew is understaffed, right? And so you're getting three people every night. And so for us, really it's much more about providing the labor that doesn't exist versus replacing labor that does exist. And so those are the kinds of success stories that make a ton of financial sense for the end customer. Right. So just in summary, industrial spaces, retail spaces, education spaces, we also see hospitality as a big one. You know, these kind of like large, wide, wide areas. Very, very popular. And this is where the technology really has to shine is because, you know, operating for example, in a Walmart supercenter, obviously there's, there's narrow aisles. We operate during open hours. Right. So safety is paramount. You're working in and around the public, you know, so making sure that the technology is friendly, is approachable, is safe, is really critical for being able to address these environments that really need robotics and automation in order to offset labor shortages that they have in order to perform the scope of work that's required to keep the environment clean.

Can I ask too, from like a sales perspective, I mean, Walmart's a huge company. Sam's Club is a huge company from a selling perspective, because you guys are software, right? Software. And you leverage the, the partnerships with these huge organizations. How important is the analytics behind the software? Because we're talking about operationally, but I'm imagining that you guys also get some pretty amazing data. Is that at all important to them?

It's critically important. Exactly. You think about a company that's operating at this kind of scale, where they've got hundreds or even thousands of locations. And the goal of those kinds of organizations is to standardize their processes across their organization. And that's very hard to do without data. And so one of the huge unlocks with robotics is, you know, each of these machines have basically telematics solution on them. They are connected to the Internet via cellular radio. And so every day they're reporting back into the cloud what was cleaned, including a map of what was cleaned, all kind of statistics around, you know, runtime, you know, water usage, et cetera. And so that provides two major, I mean, there's a ton of benefits, but I'll just highlight two of them. One is that consistency of clean. Right. So you imagine somebody who's in charge of a floor cleaning program at a corporate hq. They now get a dashboard of all of their locations and they can sort that data. We have all kinds of powerful analytics where they're able to drill into the locations that maybe aren't running up to standard. And then they can drill in, for example, look at a map of the facility, see what's going right or wrong from the perspective of that bird's eye view. And so it's extremely powerful for that facility manager in HQ to standardize their floor care operations. So that's one, and then two is just on the machine maintenance side knowing what's going on with, you know, the voltages of actuators inside of the machine. This can help with preventative maintenance. This can help with ensuring that if something's wrong with the machine, it's caught early. Right. And so you're getting much more high uptime machine. You're having A much, much more robust and available solution. You're saving on maintenance costs. And so there's these two factors really at play where you're getting a better consistency of the performance of the machine from, from an operator perspective. And you're getting better uptime because you're able to really stay on top of the maintenance of the machine as well.

Well, and I imagine that you're also can tie it into customer. Customer satisfaction and experience. Right. Like when in an age where everything is online shopping, these brick and mortar cups locations have to be really like intentional about how they're. The experience for the customer is. And if you can tie that to a clean location, that becomes super critical and say like this location's always clean for because of these analytics, like somehow connecting that I think becomes a very like big selling point. Right. Like you can say people are happy the building is clean or the Walmart is clean. Sam's Club is always shiny.

No, I really appreciate you saying that Karina, because you know, sometimes, you know, I think from the general public's perspective, who's not in this industry, you might say like, oh, maybe clean is a nice have. But to your point, clean really ties back to the P and L from the perspective, you know, a grocery is a great example. Right. I mean when I go to a grocery store, I expect a clean environment. If I don't see a clean environment, I'm not coming back. And so that's clear direct P and L impact. And then also even in industrial spaces that are not open to the public, there's a clear operational criticality to having a clean environment. Right. Having forklifts, you know, run over debris reduces the life of the forklift. You know, it can impact, you know, the core operations of a warehouse can be impacted by a dirty floor. And so that's a huge part of the selling proposition for our technology. It's not just about labor savings. It's not just about labor availability. It's also about ensuring that the scope of work is actually performed 100%.

And in retail, like particularly the floor, like it is crazy, but we everyone judges a building off of the state of the floor. Like there's a, there's a local retailer, a grocery retailer here in Utah called Harmon's and you can count on their prices being much higher for the same type of food that's on anyone else's shelves. But they present their facility as high class instead of just dirt and non shiny floors. I mean it sometimes we don't realize how simple that emotional experience actually is. An undefining moment for facility goers, patrons to judge your business.

Well, also perception, right to your point. I think when you see that a facility is using these types of tools, robotics, you immediately, maybe because we're in the cleaning industry, you know, a little bit biased, but like the perception is investment and they are contributing to a healthy environment, they're interested in advancing the industry. Like that to me speaks to, to their commitment to cleaning, their commitment to their customers, their commitment to overall advancement. And I think it's very telling to see organizations or companies across the US adapt these types of strategies from a robotics perspective, from a tech advancement perspective, because they care and the perception or feeling when you're at these stores matter.

Yeah, I'll just share one anecdote, Karina, just amplify your point, which is we saw clear data from before COVID to after Covid when our customers chose to operate the robot, shipped it for exactly the reason that you're, that you're describing. Right. It used to be before COVID people would operate the robot, you know, early morning hours maybe before the store opens, maybe when it just opens and there's not that many people inside. We saw people shift toward running the robot middle of the day or mid afternoon when the store is busiest because they wanted to have that perception of clean.

Well, and if you think about it too from a floor care perspective, like again, we've been in the industry for so long and if you think about like the way that the machines have evolved, like remember when they used to have to push the big huge machines? Right. I'm probably doing a disservice. But then they started riding on the machines. And so the first conception was like, well that's lazy. Right. They shouldn't be riding, but no, it's improving their life. Right. And now you transition to robotics, what's doing it for them? They can do other things and it's just, it's of kind good to feel like the industry as a whole is advancing and that the consumer is actually benefiting from it. Because this is ultimately what most companies are hoping to achieve, is a better consumer experience and an overall more satisfaction with cleaning. Because cleaning is very, very important. To say it bluntly.

Yeah, I mean, I have a story I'll share real quick. When I was a teenager, I was on a floor care crew for a grocery store bagger during the day, floor crew care at night, and the machines we had to push around for scrubbing the floors and stuff. Like the human element of it, like if the supervisor was like super tired. She was like, I'll just take the heat from the general manager of the grocery store tomorrow morning because I just want to go home. Right. It's like you don't have to deal with that human attitude and like it can just, it can run without, you know, human desires or excuses to say like, I just don't want to do or whatever. So. But like I remember it was like a week later, the general manager was really upset because they skipped like three nights in a row and someone slipped cause the floor and it just, it turned into this fiasco and it was just like went back to an employee's choice of just being lazy, not wanting to do the work at, you know, midnight after the store closed. And I just remembered like, man, like I, I could have stayed and done it. Cause like the floors needed to be clean. Anyways, I just bring that up because with robotics you don't have to deal with that. Yeah, it does it on its own.

There's a huge consistency increase that you get through automation.

Absolutely, 100%.

Okay, well my next question I want to go into maybe more so a story about perhaps you mentioned Walmart. Is retail the largest adoption of robotics right now? What trends are you seeing? There's healthcare and education, but like which one is just the dominating force that has like the most momentum?

I would say retail and industrial really are the dominant ones. And as you can imagine, those two are very interlinked. Right. They both represent parts of the supply chain. And so these are the kinds of customers that we see adopting our technology really at the highest pace. So they'll start, for example, in their retail stores and then we'll also accelerate our business into their distribution centers as an example, or vice versa. We'll start in DCs and warehouses and then move into the retail space. And so that customer profile really is our largest. And as you mentioned, education is another very big one for us. You know, there's huge labor shortages when it comes to janitorial care in education. And we're there to help solve that problem as well.

Those are really the big three across those sectors. Obviously a massive investment to deploy robotics at hundreds or if not thousands of facilities. What's the ROI that these companies are looking at to say, hey, this is actually going to be cheaper than a manual labor force? What are some stats you can share around that?

Sure. Well, the key thing that impacts the ROI is the number of hours that you're spending right now on labor to clean the floor specifically. Right. So the rule of thumb for us Is, you know, if you're spending an hour and a half or more per night on this task, robotics is very likely to make sense for you. And then just a question of like machine size. The price obviously depends on the size of the machine largely. And so, you know, once you're above that threshold of labor, there is a brain OS machine that is going to give you a positive very.

So from an implementation. And so you talk about technology, right? There's someone that has to really be the steward of it from your perspective and your experience. Who is that? Is it the facility manager? Is it the janitorial company? Like, who is the one that is in essentially managing the technology?

That's a really good question. And it's critically important in order for a customer to recognize the roi, that makes sense in a spreadsheet in real life, you've got to have that change management. You've got to ensure that someone is responsible for ensuring that the technology is being adopted in that environment in the appropriate way. And we see it, we see a number of models that work well, right? In some instances, yeah, we're working alongside a BSC and they're adopting robotics in order to provide a more efficient service to the end customer. In some cases, we're providing the technology to a facility that's doing self cleaning. And so it depends, obviously that's one fork in the road where it does depend on. But I think what is most critically important is that at the corporate headquarters level, right? So if we're deploying, for example, into a retail chain that's got a hundred locations, it's about the floor care specialist at HQ working together with us. And something that we pride ourselves on is all the tools that we provide for to enable that person to be successful at their job at rolling it out. But we want to help that person, you know, create training materials that are branded with, you know, that specific facilities, branding, you know, get it into whatever training programs they already have for other things, really integrate the change management into their existing workflows, existing processes, existing brand language, et cetera. And so we really pride ourselves on providing a comprehensive solution. It's not just the robot. And in fact, if you think of it as just a robot, you're going to fail. You need to bring your people along with you. And so it starts with training. Motivation is really critical. And then maintenance, right? Those are the big three ingredients and making sure that we provide our customer scalable tools that allow them to achieve the appropriate training, the appropriate motivation, the appropriate maintenance programs in order for them to have a successful ROI on the program. This is something that is vitally important. And I mean for me personally, it's something that differentiates the brain OS solution from our competitors is really that comprehensiveness.

And I love that you said that because I think some of the things that I hear from a digital transformation or adaptation perspective is this misconception of a one time training and done. And something that like I just took away from what you were saying, David, is the ongoing training, implementation tools, support, resources. Right. It's not just about putting these things into these locations, but it's providing ongoing support and understanding that when you are adapting new technology in any type, it's going to be a gradual process. You can't expect it to be out the gate so strong, it's perfect and stun. It's, it's a very much cyclical, maybe not cyclical, but it's got to go up like that because you're changing a mindset, you're changing a cultural. You're really coming into your point about like motivation and the mind. It's, it's very important that the people that are in charge of operating or maintaining understand from a culture and mental perspective the power of this technology, how to use it, how to amplify what you guys are doing. So I love that you said that because it is ongoing and I think we have to do a better job of educating our consumers of it's not just one time and done. It's actually a gradual process.

Yeah. And I mean, I would challenge the word gradual, right. Because you know, for, for me, gradual is not the right word here. I mean it will be gradual if you don't do the work upfront. Right. And so you've got to be thoughtful about how to roll this up so that, so that, so that you can roll it out rapidly. To your point, if you don't do the work up front, it's going to be gradual and it's going to be two steps forward, one step back.

Right.

Because your people on the ground, in the facility, they don't understand. Right. I mean they might be thinking, is this thing, you're going to take my job. So you've got to, you've got to not only explain about the robot itself, but you've also got to deal with the emotional side of this too. And this is why we're doing this and here's why this is good for you and here's what's in it for you. And so there's a lot to be done here, you know, helping the people in the facility, not just from the, from the brain perspective, from the intellectual perspective, but also from the emotional, from the heart perspective, make sure they understand why this is good for them, why it's good for their business, et cetera. And so it really comes down to having continuous training. You both know very well this industry suffers from very high turnover, right? So it's, it can't be one and done training because the average janitor lasts maybe six months in a facility. So you've got to build in from day one, continuous training for when that turnover inevitably is going to happen. And then on the motivation side, that's really where the data comes from too. We spoke about some of the value of the data that these robots generate. That can really help on the motivational side too, right? Because you can provide rewards for stores that are really adopting this in the appropriate way. You can provide remediation for stores who maybe aren't adopting it as quickly as is expected. And so that data powers this capability of reinforcing training, reinforcing motivation, ensuring that everyone's on the same page about the goals for this program.

I see. Fair. I like that. Kaden, what do you think?

So, David, as you were thinking it, as you were speaking, got me thinking about being the software behind these robotics. You're choosing partners of those that are building the physical machines and you guys are being the operating brain behind them, right? So you have this perhaps perception from like one brand to another. In the end, both, both brands are going out serving facilities. How do you deal with like the blame being connected to you guys as the software versus like the actual hardware?

Yeah, great question.

And the quality differences between the two, that, that's just a hard thing to manage with amrs if you're deployed as the brain behind a bunch of different brands. Is it a, is it a real thing where brain corp as the software from one experience in a brand gets affected versus another? Does that make sense?

I mean, look, it's definitely something that we need to be very conscious of. It's a challenge in our business model. Right. So we feel very confident that our business model is a very powerful business model. It gives customers the best of both worlds, right? You get best of breed on the software side from a company that's been in this space longer than anybody else. You have best of breed on the hardware side. You know, you're not relying on a robotics company to figure out how to do the mechanical process of cleaning. You're working with companies like Tennant who have been in the cleaning business for literally 150 years. So unlike some of our competitors who are robots that happen to clean, we are automating true cleaning machines. Right. And so where cleaning quality matters, our business model really shines. But to your point, it doesn't come without its challenges. Making sure that we've got really tight support channels, for example, right. Where from the end customer's perspective, it's not a blame game. It's not, hey, I call Braincorp and they say call this guy and they call, you know, so we can have that. Right. And so we've worked extremely hard on our business model on the operation side to make sure that the customer has a seamless experience. And it really starts with the OEM first. Right. So we are kind of an intel inside, if you want to use that, you know, for our OEM partners. Right. And so the end, from the end customer's perspective, they're working with the oem. If there's a maintenance challenge, they're calling the oem, of course, and behind the OEM to make sure that they're able to provide the support, you know, the world class support that, that we expect when it comes to the autonomy and the robotic side. Right. And so it's very much a well thought out model when it comes to OEM as Tier 1 support and then BrainCorp as you know, Tier 2, Tier 3, etc. Escalation, do the autonomy side. Right. And so, you know, I believe we've been extremely thoughtful about this in a way where the end customer can feel a high degree of confidence that when they buy a Brain OS powered machine from tenant, tenant, 100% stands behind that product and is going to provide them the tenant level of quality that they expect across the tenant fleet.

Well, I think brand alignment becomes critical in those partnerships. Right. If you guys are not aligned from a brand integrity and alignment perspective, it's clear from the gate. And so it sounds like you guys have a really good grasp on brand alignment with those partners and you guys are the values that you share from a customer experience perspective, value perspective, accountability perspective is all there. And I'm sure that's part of your intentionality with what you lead with. So it's evident.

Yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that, Karina, because it is really important for us when we select partners in the industry that we select partners that have a shared brand philosophy that we have. You know, we are a premium brand. We're a brand that stands for quality. We partner with OEMs that are premium brands that stand for quality. And so that also, I mean, you've got to get the operations right. But even more important to your point, you've got to start with a partnership that has the same values.

Absolutely.

And that's something that we've been very intentional about.

I love that, man.

Some good gold nuggets there.

We have, right.

The. In closing. So we have a whole world of opportunities in front of us. From your personal view of where robotics are heading right now, pretty dominating large scale floor care, let's say in the next five years. Where do you see technology and robotics being going? What's, what's like the next level that it's, do you think it's going to move to next?

It's a great question. It's something I think about a lot as, as you can imagine. Right. And so specifically on the floor care side, we're targeting more and more forms of automation. Right. So I spoke a little bit about, you know, the human in the loop. Right. You know, today, you know, with our technology, something that's very powerful about it is that the local janitor is able to train the robot in a very intuitive way. Doesn't require any programming skills. Basically, they demonstrate to the robot, we call it learning by demonstration how the robot should operate. And that's a very powerful, very scalable way for our robots to know how to clean a particular environment. Now that does require human in the loop, for example. Right. So something that we're working on is to automate that process, right. Where the robot just knows, you know, how to clean the environment. That's one example. Right. You also see in our industry and things that we're working on, you know, dump and fill stations and charging. Right. So that you're eliminating that part of the daily labor out of the robot. So, you know, one category, Caden, is just on the floor care side, just further automating the processes on the margins. You're just making things more and more automated. So in the future, the floors just get cleaned autonomously without human intervention. So that's on floor care side. From a BrainCorp perspective, we operate in floor care and beyond floor care as well. One of our brand promises is called Automate the aisle, and that's a retail aisle, that's a warehouse aisle, a distribution center aisle, just as examples. And here it's about, yeah, we automate floor care as one example, but today we also automate inventory tasks. Right. So we go up and down the aisles of retail stores and warehouses, checking on the inventory, making sure that the right products on the right shelf at the right Price with the right quantity, basically eliminating a lot of really tedious manual tasks that the human beings aren't very good at. Right. I mean, just imagine like looking down a grocery aisle and trying to figure out which, which items in the wrong spot. I mean, it's virtually impossible. And that's an area that we're focused on as well. Right. And so when you ask me what's happening in the next five years, we're automating a lot of those dull, tedious tasks in that retail and in that warehouse environment. Starting with floor care, starting with, in starting with inventory checking. And then it migrates into not just checking on the inventory, but also correcting inventory problems. So if you've got a place product, you know, we're working on forms of mobile manipulation where a robot actually can reconfigure the shelf to, to match a planogram. We're working on tools that will, that will allow retailers to automate the process of online order fulfillment. So imagine a robot that can pick your online order. And so those are the kinds of things that we're working on. Just given our core expertise in robotics and automation, combined with the trusted brand that we've built in the, in the retail and industrial spaces, it really helps us kind of connect with customers, help them on their automation journey. Where they're able to, for example, start with robotic floor care, which is something that, you know, they can bite off as a first step. What's great about automating floor care is there's not a whole lot of it dependencies. You don't have to integrate with very many systems. Like you don't have to integrate, for example with like a warehouse management tool or an inventory. So what where we see our business really helping facilities is we can help you get started with step one, automated floor care. We can go with you on your automation journey into automated inventory management. And then we can help you further automate the actual manipulation of product on your shelf. And so by working with customers and kind of helping them establish confidence over time in their automation journey, we feel like we're accelerating the pace of robotic adoption in these facilities.

Can I just tell you, as you were talking, I immediately think of, I don't know if you're going to like this or not, David, but comparable to Amazon, like I think about what they did in the warehouse space in terms of like robotics and how it changed the mindset from, you know, the employees using helping with the, to the loading up, warehousing and inventory and all the things and how they've adapted robotics now and changed that mindset. Right. And now as you're talking, it's the first thing I thought of is like thinking through the robotics in the. In the aisles and how they would be able to restock inventory. It's like the evolution of that. So immediately thought of the. Comparable to Amazon. I don't know if you like Amazon or you don't, but.

Whether I like them or not, and I. I'm an avid customer of Amazon, I have to admit it, I think we all are, you know. You know, clearly they're at the leading edge of automation and I think they've done through by being thoughtful and being methodical.

Yeah.

And that's something that. Yeah, I take it as high praise that we're in some ways following in their footsteps and helping other facilities also go on that automation journey in a way similar to how they did.

I love that. What was it called? The aisle. What was that? The aisle. Automate the aisle. Is that based on user experience, research and journey? Like, how did you guys get there in terms of like, the next thing that you were going to develop?

I'll be honest. It actually came from customers. Right. So I had a customer that said, look, you're going up and down my aisles anyway, cleaning the floor. Why don't you just tell me when I've got an out of stock?

Yeah.

And I said, that's really cool. That's a great idea.

Yeah, I love that.

So, David, and to wrap up, I have one final question for you. Being all in on AI and robotics, have you ever gotten a ride in a Waymo?

Yes.

Good promoting. Like, I had my experience for the first time two weeks ago. I was in Austin, downtown Austin. And it got me thinking, like, I'm all about AI and robotics. And then all of a sudden, I had to put my life in the vehicle of the robot.

Oh, yeah, it gets real.

And I was like, oh, okay. And it was awesome. It was better than most Uber drivers I've ever ridden with.

Okay. I was going to say asking for a friend. What is Waymo again? Let's be sure that we know what we're talking. I have no idea what that is.

So Waymos. I think they're deployed in like five cities right now.

Okay.

Downtown areas, but full autonomous robot cars, no driver.

Wow.

You've both done it and, like, willingly just got me in.

Yeah, I took it from downtown San Francisco to near San Francisco Airport.

Okay. Yeah, I would be into that. I think I would absolutely, willingly just jump in. I probably wouldn't Even realize I was doing it. I was like, my Uber. So it's an app, I'm assuming. How do you find these?

So they collect. When you're in one of these cities where they have a partnership with Uber and you go to Uber, you can get an autonomous car, where I took it in San Francisco and I think also in la.

Yeah.

There's actually a separate Waymo app that you download and it looks like Uber and you select your Waymo and it comes and picks you up and it's just. It is an amazing experience.

I'm going to report back because I'm headed to the west coast in a couple of weeks. So stay tuned.

Go to their website, go find which cities, go find an excuse to make it a business trip to go try it out. It's fun. And it just. David, as you were talking about, like, inventory management stuff, like, we're. We're moving into a day and age where people have to become more trusting of the accuracy behind robots. Are they going to be 100% perfect without mistakes ever? No, but it's going to be way better than human error. Anyways, we'll end the episode there. David, it has been so fun to hear your thoughts and insights in this sector and we hope to see you and get you involved in the CLX event on robotics. It's such a fun topic and it's an exciting future and there's a long road ahead. Like you'd mentioned earlier, there's a bunch of pieces that are going to evolve even over the next 15, 20 years, man. Congrats to Braincorp for being at the forefront of it and I'm excited to watch your journey.

What an incredible episode.

Yeah, really appreciate it. You know, Karina and Kaden, really appreciate your interest in Braincorp and in robotics and yeah, we'd love to spend more quality time with you. Looking forward to it.

Well, if you are a listener and you haven't subscribed, don't miss out on these types of moments that we find people like David to come on. So make sure you hit that subscribe link.

But Kaden, you have to do the thing. Like, you have to do the subscribe here. You know how, like, all the YouTubers subscribe?

I usually put it on somewhere. Click here. Oh, it never works. When you actually click, it just pauses.

My video, My kids always watch the YouTube channels and like, at the end, the influencer, like, subscribe here and like, it's hysterical. So we gotta do that.

That's funny. Alrighty. Well, thanks, David. And we'll be catching up in the future, hoping to continue to keep the conversations going.

Thank you very much.

That was awesome.