Janitorial Services and Artificial Intelligence

Janitorial services vendors and workers, through the years, have been plagued by inefficient and labor intensive processes that often result in an insufficient level of cleanliness and sanitization, a challenge that is currently the focus of several artificial intelligence developers and robotic cleaning tool manufacturers. Everyone, to some degree, is familiar with the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner line, manufactured by iRobot. Love them or hate them, the robots represent the steady march of humanity toward the automation of time-consuming tasks that often lead to repetitive motion injuries in operators. However, the manner in which the systems go about their duties, as well as the reasoning behind automated decisions, is not without its critics. A commonly cited issue with current technologies is the lack of transparency and understanding regarding the underlying instructions, performance, and functionality of the systems.