Through the first nine months of the year, BrainOS®-powered robots have freed up approximately 2.4 million hours of productivity for workers in retail, grocery, commercial offices, malls, and other high-traffic public locations, according to new Brain Corp data released yesterday. This is up from 331,000 hours during the same period last year.

The near 10x increase in hours is a result of the growth of the BrainOS-enabled robotic fleet, as well as the soaring usage of robotic cleaners, particularly among U.S. retailers as they try to adjust to heightened cleaning requirements in the wake of COVID-19.

“Cleaning has never been more important,” said Alan Butcher, VP of Client Services at Brain Corp. “Autonomous solutions not only enhance cleaning efficiency and reporting, they also give valuable time back to workers to focus on other critical tasks.”

BrainOS is an AI software platform that is used by manufacturing partners to create autonomous scrubbers, vacuums, delivery tugs and shelf-scanning applications. Through its partners, Brain Corp currently operates more than 14,450 autonomous robots, representing the largest fleet of its kind operating in indoor commercial public locations.

Through the first three quarters of the year, median usage of robotic scrubbers at U.S. retail locations is up 14.5% compared to the prior year. This includes an 11.5% y-o-y increase in Q3. Roughly a quarter (24.6%) of the usage so far this year has come during daytime hours, compared to only 10.5% last year, according to Brain Corp data.

Overall, as of Sept. 30, BrainOS-powered robots have also:

• Covered a total of 42 billion square feet worldwide
• Traveled a total of 2.6 million miles in public indoor spaces
• Mapped a total of 861 million unique square feet of retail spacing, giving the company more exposure to edge cases than any other robotic vendor in its class (essential to AI innovation and performance improvement)

“This has been a watershed year for the growth and adoption of autonomous robots within retail and other commercial verticals,” Butcher said. “We expect these trends to continue as the pandemic lingers and businesses continue to lean on robots to help add reliability and consistency to their workforces.”