Moxi can deal with routine duties for hospital employees corresponding to delivering provides, lab specimens, and drugs. | Supply: Diligent Robotics
Diligent Robotics has added two former executives from autonomous car developer Cruise to its management crew. Diligent Robotics named Rashed Haq chief expertise officer (CTO) and Todd Brugger chief working officer (COO). The corporate, recognized for its Moxi robotic, mentioned the additions will assist drive its growth past its preliminary give attention to hospital logistics within the U.S.
For years, Cruise was one of many main autonomous car builders within the U.S. Nevertheless, 2023 introduced main street bumps. These culminated within the California Division of Motor Autos (DMV) suspending its permits within the state. Cruise wasn’t capable of get better from this. In December 2024, GM mentioned it was now not funding Cruise’s robotaxi work.
“As one of the crucial delicate and high-stakes environments you would deploy in, hospitals have been the final word proving floor for our expertise,” mentioned Dr. Andrea Thomaz, CEO and co-founder of Diligent Robotics. “We’ve already seen a exceptional impression, and with Rashed and Todd’s seasoned management from their time at Cruise, we’re well-positioned to scale. Their experience will probably be instrumental as we speed up AI-driven product growth and increase the attain of our humanoid robots into broader industrial purposes.”
Diligent reaches past hospital purposes
Since its founding in 2017, Diligent has targeted on advancing healthcare automation with Moxi. The corporate has deployed Moxi in additional than 30 hospitals throughout the U.S. It has additionally achieved over a million deliveries and saved hospital employees almost 600,000 hours.
Earlier this yr, Thomaz advised The Robotic Report that Diligent might deploy Moxi into assisted residing services, for instance. This might assist the corporate adapt to much less structured environments. “If we go from hospitals to assisted residing, for instance, then you definately begin to see a really attention-grabbing trajectory the place an organization might go from hospitals to structured nursing properties to ultimately the house,” Thomaz mentioned.
“The tech stack powering our robots attracts on lots of the identical core applied sciences as self-driving vehicles – multi-modal notion, predicting human behaviors, real-time planning beneath uncertainty, and extra,” mentioned Vivian Chu, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Diligent Robotics. “However deploying AI-native humanoid robots at scale in human environments is the following frontier of autonomy. That’s precisely why Rashed and Todd are becoming a member of us – they see what we see: a large alternative to use their expertise scaling self-driving to the much more advanced area of human-aware manipulation and mobility.”
Chu will probably be talking at RoboBusiness (Oct. 15-16 in Santa Clara, CA), a robotics growth convention produced by The Robotic Report. Her discuss will give attention to AI for dexterity and adaptation in high-stakes environments. She’ll clarify how Diligent Robotics takes a hybrid strategy to autonomy by combining the reliability of classical robotics with the facility of next-gen AI fashions, all whereas deploying in dozens of actual hospitals the place no two elevators, badge scanners, or workflows are the identical.
Inside Haq and Brugger’s experience
Diligent Robotics CTO Rashed Haq (left) and COO Todd Brugger. | Supply: Diligent Robotics
Haq most just lately served as Cruise’s VP, head of AI and robotics. He helped construct autonomy for self-driving autos and scale Cruise to over 5 million miles of totally driverless autos in over cities. With deep experience in deploying manufacturing AI at scale, he’ll proceed constructing Diligent’s AI roadmap and unlocking new capabilities for Moxi.
“Humanoids and embodied AI techniques characterize one of many largest industries of our future, akin to foundational sectors like power and transportation,” mentioned Haq. “Diligent’s traction in essential, ADA-compliant environments like hospitals is a transparent proof level for product-market match, and the crew’s pragmatic strategy to creating an information flywheel reinforces their capability to construct new type components for purposes in different industries.”
Brugger most just lately served as COO of Cruise. He led Cruise’s robotaxi operations and created the framework to scale its fleet from zero to over 500 vehicles on the street. His new function as Diligent’s COO will give attention to delivering and scaling the complete lifecycle of the enterprise. This contains something from constructing and deploying robots to supporting them within the discipline and driving the industrial technique that powers development throughout healthcare and past.
“From spending my profession serving to new applied sciences make the leap from R&D to real-world deployment, it’s clear that AI and robotics are at a historic inflection level,” mentioned Brugger. “Diligent stood out due to their give attention to execution over R&D. I’m excited to assist scale what they’re already doing—incomes belief, making certain security, and creating suggestions loops from deployments to engineering.”
