Businesses are moving beyond collecting Amazon’s Scout delivery device will interact with and relying on data from their own operating employees who send the robot into the open world, environments toward a future where robots as well as customers when it arrives at their door. allow them to interact physically with the world. But in between those two endpoints, Scout may also Accessing the full opportunity of this new frontier cross paths with drivers, people walking their dogs, will require robotics technicians, data scientists mail carriers and curious children or adults. Some and fleet management expertise at a level that people will find the device interesting and want 48% can only be met through a strategic combination to interact with it; others may find it intrusive and of hiring and sustained upskilling efforts. want to steer clear of it; and a few may even want to vandalize it. Amazon and other companies must Talent challenges are only the beginning. These prepare for these and myriad other eventualities, forays into the open world will also force companies gathering data all the while to better inform future to consider a new audience impacted by their robotics efforts. That means a substantial investment products and services: people with whom they in human-computer interaction expertise. It also Consumers surveyed believe have no employee or customer relationship. When calls for expanding that expertise beyond the strictly robots are poised to make robotics remained confined to companies’ own defined audiences that companies have focused controlled environments, they could draw boundary on in the past. their lives easier (48%) or more lines around specific audiences that might interact efficient (41%). At the same time, with the devices: a company’s workforce or existing 39% state they are concerned customers. Open-world autonomy makes those robots will introduce more boundaries moot. problems than they fix.