At least 10% of U.S. homes (1 in 10) may contain a service robot by 2020, if a recent report by Juniper Research is to be believed. Many may be surprised that at least 1 in 25 homes in the U.S. already contain at least one robot. However, this study finds that in the next 4 years this number will more than double.
Although we are far from the ubiquitous robots of many Science Fiction movies, Juniper Research found that increasingly people are learning to trust robots. This has been helped greatly by robot designers who have been developing robots that don’t get caught in the so called ‘uncanny valley’.
Juniper Research also found that their will be continued growth in businesses such as restaurants and hotels using robots. However, they say there will be a shift from these robots being used for purely novelty reasons, to actually providing a useful service.