The robot that chatted with PM Modi could be selling you stuff at a mall

Robots are transiting from factory floors to being used in the retail and banking sectors

Guests attending an event to mark the launch of a new co-working space in Bengaluru last week were in for a surprise. Their host turned out to be — not a human — but a humanoid. A four-feet tall robot called Mitri welcomed them,  made the usual PowerPoint presentation, felicitated fellow speakers and later, even chatted and shook hands with everyone. 

Mitri has been built by Invento Robotics, a three-year-old start-up and the same company which made the robot that interacted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US presidential advisor Ivanka Trump at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad last year.

“Showcasing a robot at that grand event not only gave us publicity, it also showed the world that India is embracing modern robotics and artificial intelligence,” says Balaji Viswanathan, CEO and founder of Invento Robotics. Since GES, Viswanathan and his team have been busy giving demonstrations of their robots and how they can be used at banks, cinema halls, shopping malls and offices. So far, robots have been used mostly on the factory floor. But firms like Invento are spearheading the move to extend their use to retail and other sectors. Since robots have the ability to recognise a customer (by using facial recognition technology) and can remember the description of products, they are well-suited for many sectors, especially those that require close contact with humans. For example, at the Bangaluru event last week, Mitri used her natural language processing (NLP) engine to understand what guests were saying and conversed with them.

As of now, India does not have too many industrial robots. In 2017,  there were only about 3,000 robots in large factories. The relatively small number is because of the high cost of manufacturing robots. India’s comparatively low labour costs still give humans an edge over machines.

But experts say that the market for robots is growing in the country. “Robotics penetration in Indian industry is slowly expanding. In 2017, the robots deployed in India were roughly around 3,000; this year it will grow to at least 3,500,” says P Satyanarayana, director, Large Format Printers and Robots, at Epson India. The company has sold around 200 robots in the country in the last one year.

The International Federation of Robotics, a Frankfurt-based non-profit for research and promotion of robots, also says that robot deployment in India will grow at the rate of 19 per cent per annum and touch 7,500 units by 2021.

Among those who are mulling the use of robots in their everyday operations is the Airport Authority of India (AAI), which plans to have them at airport terminals to greet and assist passengers. “The idea is still at a preliminary stage, but there is a thought that AAI should encourage the use of robotics. So we plan to invite companies to present their products and show how they can be used,” says a senior AAI official. AAI wants to use robots to help passengers with flight information, guide them through various stages such as security check, baggage disposal and so on. Trial runs at Chennai and Coimbatore airports went down well with passengers,  giving AAI the confidence to take the project further. In the first phase, 50 robots will be deployed at airports in major metros. If all goes well, we could see as many as 200 robots helping passengers at the country’s airports.

The banking sector is another field where robots are finding many takers. HDFC Bank, India’s largest private sector bank, has introduced humanoid robots in select branches. These robots speak to customers when they walk in, and move around helping them and leading them to the relevant counter. Technologies such as NLP, deep learning and neural networks allow them to understand a customer’s query and deliver the most relevant information. The robots can also make for a more personal banking experience since they recognise customers’ faces. 

Nitin Chug, country head for digital banking at HDFC, says that this is a great way of showing customers how technologically advanced the bank is. “Our customers want choice and whether they come to a branch or use the bank on their phones, they want to experience the latest and most cutting-edge technologies,” he says. However, he adds that at the moment it is unlikely that they will have a robot at every branch of the bank. Robots are being employed in banks for other functions as well. Epson makes robots that count, sort and arrange stacks of currency bills, and these are being used by several banks, especially ICICI Bank, one of Epson’s biggest customers.

With each passing year, robots are becoming smarter. Thanks to machine learning, the new generation of robots are able to self-optimise, that is, adjust their parameters to adapt to real-time conditions, reduce defects and deliver standard quality. They can also be connected with other robots in order to carry out operations in perfect harmony with each other.

But will robots make human workers redundant? Not by a long shot. At least, not any time soon. For example, AAI does not foresee any decline in its human workforce on account of robots. “The robots will be used for very basic purposes like giving out information to flyers. We have not yet envisaged robots taking the place of our human workforce. We don’t see that happening in the near future,” an AAI official says.

For now, robots may just make the customer experience a whole lot smoother.