The rise of robots-as-a-service

Robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) is about to eat the world of work. While much of the attention in the world of automation technology has been focused on self-driving cars, many other markets traditionally dominated by human-in-the-loop solutions are reaching a point of inflection, enabling RaaS solutions to take over. Robotics companies historically have sold their customers -- you guessed it -- robots. In the enterprise, robots have often been leveraged to streamline manufacturing. Giant companies with ominous, global, megacorp-sounding names like FANUC and ABB provide solutions that require hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of investment dollars just to get started.