Everything-as-a-Service.
Think about that. Consider what the world will be like when everything is basically a service. The tasks that are presently handled by humans will all be done by robots.
It is something many ponder yet few really thoroughly explain.
In this article I am going to discuss the Everything-as-a-Service and how autonomous transportation is the first leg in this.
For this reason I am going to discuss Tesla, the one company with the pillars to pull all of this off.
Autonomous Vehicles The Entry Into The Automated Economy
The "robotaxi" discussion centers around the movement of humans. This is sensible since that is who is presently doing the riding.
What if, however, the future was one where robotaxis primary utility was to deliver humanoid robots?
Through this thought process, we start to delve into the different layers of the automation world, especially in the home. Think of robot upon robot upon robot.
Using this example, we have our Tesla robotaxi delivering an Optimus robot to the house. It does not come alone.
Accompanying this is a couple other robots. The first is a window cleaning robot, that is attached to windows and cleans them autonomously. A second robot is used for floors (think Roomba but on steroids).
The challenge with each of these is they require movement. The floor cleaner can zip around on level yet it cannot navigate stairs well. At the same time, the window washer has to be physically moved to the next window.
Optimus handles all of this. It does the physical movement along with other tasks such as the laundry. Automation is being driven down deeper, removing more tasks from humans. Few are going to complain about this because, outside those in the industry of washing windows, nobody enjoys that work.
The reason why we are talking about services is the pricing model. Even at $50K, few households can afford a robot. Also, it will be some time before the capabilities are such where an Optimus can do everything. Actually, since specialization still applies, it is more efficient to have bots that handle specific tasks as opposed to one that does everything.
There will be a balance of course.
A New Economy
What we are looking at is the entry into a new economy.
How this all unfolds is going to be wide and varied. One thing that we can expect is the nature of brands to change.
Right now, brands are chosen by humans.
For example, what laundry detergent is purchased is a human decision. That said, it will be altered in the future.
Who is going to determine which one is used? The robot will. Since it is brought in to do the laundry, it uses what it opts for. This is a service, with all included.
Consider how that changes the nature of marketing.
We see that today. Look at Amazon Web Services. Companies pay Amazon a ton of money for the services they utilize. Ultimately, the only concern is the end product.
Business who are customers of Amazon are not telling them what servers to buy. The connectivity apparatus is of no concern. How the data centers are powered is not thought about by the end users.
Basically, whatever goes into making the service work is of no interest to the customer. The simple focus is that it works and is reliable.
Robots will be the same. People will not care what glass cleaner the window bot uses. Optimus will choose the laundry detergent and dish soap. All of this will simply be part of the service people pay for.
Amazon is the dominant player in cloud services even though the competition is from giants like Google and Apple.
Tesla is going to dominate the robot industry, at least in the United States. It is the one with the ability to manufacture at scale, has the real world data, the compute, and the knowledge of how to process it.
That is the challenge for competitors. They might excel in one area or another but not all of them.
Of course, we have to mention that Tesla is starting the process of putting what will amount to millions of robotaxis onto the road. By the end of the decade, we might see what is described here starting to evolve.