Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 16th April 2026 Issue no. 1206
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SoftBank Robotics America broadens physical AI solutions portfolio
Yesterday, SoftBank Robotics America announced the official launch of a new suite of AI-enabled robots for the commercial cleaning industry.
This announcement furthers the future of physical AI solutions for the sector and expands the company’s solutions portfolio with advanced technologies designed to deliver increased efficiency and enterprise value in highly dynamic environments.
“SoftBank Robotics America is pleased and excited to expand the applications and products of our portfolio with our trusted partner, Gausium,” said Brady Watkins, the company’s president and GM. “This move provides complementary technologies that enable more scalable outcomes that can deliver best run operations. We are committed to providing organisations with a clear, confident start or expansion point for their digital autonomous technology journey."
Edward Cheng, CEO, Gausium, added: "We are thrilled to work with our trusted partner, SoftBank Robotics America, to expand its portfolio with our AI-powered autonomous cleaning solutions. As the Platinum Service Elite partner of choice, SoftBank Robotics America is our premier partner for complex enterprise solutioning, and its renowned enterprise adoption program ensures customers receive the full value from their robotic investments."
As robots engage in more complex dynamic environments, the technologies must be ready to meet the requirements for the tasks that are being delegated. This includes dynamic navigation, obstacle avoidance and creating solutions that are highly effective and efficient to meet customer expectations.
The company’s VP Product, Kate Kidd, explained further:
"In every environment, enabling customers to realise the full potential of automation is paramount. That's why we continue to conduct rigorous environmental and customer testing to bring the right physical products into our portfolio that enable customers to receive the best value from our automation programs.
“We are incredibly excited about our latest portfolio entries - Omnie, V40 2.0, and Phantas 1.3 - and we believe they are best in class for their specific customer use cases. With the latest in computer vision and vision language models, our new service robots have superior spatial awareness, including 3D LiDAR, which leads to better localisation, smarter navigation and ultimately higher uptime.
“This enables delivery of greater customer value - especially when deployed in locations such as senior living communities, medium-sized retail spaces and airports.
"SoftBank Robotics America's rapidly expanding solutions portfolio comprises service robots for commercial vacuuming, scrubbing, mopping and sweeping as well as other autonomous programs that are tailored to a wide spectrum of highly dynamic environments."
The latest additions to the SoftBank Robotics America portfolio include AI-enabled service robots for:
* Scrubbing in large dynamic environments - Omnie
* Vacuuming in medium-large indoor environments - V40 2.0
* Sweeping and light scrubbing for small-medium indoor environments - Phantas 1.3
The improvements to computer vision and vision-language models enable service robots to deliver enhanced cleaning efficiency, have fewer delays and less requirement for human intervention leading to an enhanced clean and a more efficient operation.
Many market factors are causing a reduction in the workforce pool available for service operations positions. Enterprise organisations dependent on delivering SOP consistency to drive revenue via customer experience and perception find that using autonomous robots for commercial cleaning is essential.
Mark Stoll, the company’s senior vice president revenue operations, added: "This expansion is about outcomes, not just robots, and strengthens our ability to support diverse environments with the right combination of vacuuming and scrubbing performance, reliability and data-driven accountability. This further differentiates SoftBank Robotics America as an orchestrator, bringing together best-in-class autonomous technologies, deployment expertise, and lifecycle support into a single, outcome-driven solution."
https://us.softbankrobotics.com/
5th March 2026