By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

In an age where many households have a Roomba to do their vacuuming, it’s no surprise that there are already many proven use cases of how robots fit into the world of field service. With advancements in agentic AI, the question becomes how much more sophisticated and widespread can (and should) the use of robots in field service become?

One example of what’s become possible is newly announced collaboration between IFS and Boston Dynamics, which seeks to integrate Boston Dynamics’ quadruped Spot robots with IFS’s agentic AI platform, IFS.ai. This integration suggests the possibility of a seamless loop from sensing in the physical world to decision-making and action in the enterprise.

Robots Lessen the Pain of Labor Pressures & Skills Shortages

For organizations across many asset-intensive industries such as energy, utilities, manufacturing, and mining, an intelligent alternative to highly-skilled human field technicians holds tremendous appeal. Businesses across these industries and more are under mounting pressure as their field operations face both labor pressures and skills shortages.

It’s intriguing to consider how something like the IFS–Boston Dynamics solution is explicitly designed to mitigate these strains – offering a robotic option to autonomously perform inspection tasks that would otherwise require highly skilled humans. At the recent Industrial X Unleashed event in NYC, the companies demonstrated how the Spot robots capture a wide range of data—thermal images to spot overheating, audio to detect gas leaks, visual readings of gauges, even signs of spills or voltage irregularities. This data is fed into IFS.ai, which uses agentic algorithms to analyze anomalies, predict failures, and trigger enterprise actions such as maintenance scheduling or crew dispatch.

Conceptually, by automating routine inspections, organizations free up their human workforce to focus on the most critical, skilled interventions. This shift not only helps address labor shortfalls but optimizes the use of existing field teams, reducing downtime and improving resource allocation. To this point, yes, the coupling of physical robotics and AI also unlocks improvements in operational efficiency. With Spot feeding real-time data into IFS.ai, organizations can rapidly convert observations into enterprise-level actions: preventive maintenance, anomaly detection, and optimized crew dispatch. This kind of agentic, automated decision-making shortens response times and enables preemptive intervention. Rather than reacting to breakdowns, companies can proactively address potential issues and therefore maximize asset uptime, a key performance metric in field service.

Robots Enhance Safety in High-Rish Field Service Enviroments

In addition to how robots can alleviate pressure related to labor shortages, one of the most compelling arguments for robotics in field service is safety. Many industrial environments are hazardous: high-voltage substations, confined spaces, corrosive or unstable structures, or remote and difficult terrain.

In the IFS–Boston Dynamics model, Spot robots can enter these spaces instead of humans, minimizing exposure to danger. Autonomous inspections may be easier to be performed more frequently than manual ones, allowing organizations to potentially catch issues earlier and reduce the risk of failures that sometimes prove catastrophic.

This article from Robotics & Automation News reinforces the positive impact robots can have on safety. It discusses how various types of inspection and maintenance robots (drones, crawlers, quadrupeds, and climbing robots) are being deployed for infrastructure monitoring, non-destructive testing (NDT), and remote asset inspection.

Some examples from various industries include:

• Transmission Line Robots: Some utilities are using ground-based robots (including robotic arms) for energized line maintenance, transfer of conductors, and insulator cleaning—tasks that would be especially risky for humans.
• Inspection Robots for Infrastructure: Quadruped robots equipped with thermal, acoustic, and gas sensors are being used in refineries, petrochemical plants, or other sites with difficult terrain.
• Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Robots: Robotic NDT tools, including crawlers and tethered devices, can navigate pipelines, storage tanks, and other structures to perform ultrasonic or eddy current testing—reducing the need for human inspectors in confined or dangerous areas.
• Collaborative Inspection Cobots: In aviation, for example, the Air-Cobot project developed a mobile collaborative robot that works alongside humans to inspect aircraft fuselages, capturing high-resolution visual and 3D scan data.

The Flip Side: 5 Challenges to Consider for Robotics in Field Service

While the potential to increase deployment of robotics in field service is promising in how it can help address labor challenges, improve safety, and create efficiencies, it is also not without significant challenges. Organizations must carefully examine these potential challenges to consider how to offset limitations and avoid potential problems.

1. Technical Complexity and Reliability. Operating in unstructured, unpredictable environments demands sophisticated engineering. Legged robots or drones must navigate uneven terrain, stairs, tight spaces, and obstacles. Sensor fusion, precise localization, obstacle avoidance, and autonomous navigation remain engineering challenges. Moreover, robots themselves need upkeep! So, organizations will need to consider how they “service” this new service workforce. Preventative maintenance for field-deployed robots is essential, otherwise they’re providing no value if not working in their mission-critical applications.
2. Risk in Human–Robot Collaboration. When robots and humans share the workspace, safety is a top concern. Human–robot collaboration (HRC) introduces dynamic and unpredictable interactions. Recent research is developing frameworks for real-time risk assessment, such as adaptive decision-making and dynamic ergonomics monitoring, to ensure humans are safe in shared workspaces.
3. Autonomy vs. Control. There is a trade-off to consider between full autonomy and human oversight. Some systems operate in fully autonomous modes, but many practical deployments rely on shared control or semi-autonomous operation to ensure reliability. In uses of robots alongside agentic AI, as in the IFS-Boston Dynamics example, it’s important to have parameters in place for how to override decisions, audit actions, or ensure accountability when robots act based on AI judgments.
4. Economic and Business Model Considerations. The initial capital cost of robots is nontrivial. While long-term ROI may be compelling (fewer outages, reduced labor risk, predictive maintenance), organizations must invest in robust hardware, integration, and training. There’s also the challenge of scaling: as more robots are deployed, managing fleets, software updates, and maintenance becomes increasingly complex. A related consideration is regulatory and safety compliance, especially in critical infrastructure. For example, robotics in power transmission must meet safety and reliability standards, and companies must build trust with operators, regulators, and unions.
5. Ethical and Workforce Concerns. Whether a factual or perceived intention, displacing workers is a sensitive issue. While it’s true that robotics can free workers from dangerous or mundane tasks, organizations should expect anxiety from employees and possible resistance from labor groups concerned about job loss. It’s also crucial to plan for how you’ll accommodate the need to retrain and reskill workers, not just to manage, maintain and interpret robotic systems, but to perform higher-value field service tasks.

Despite these challenges, there are applications where the trajectory for robotics in field service is promising. As both robotics hardware and AI become increasingly sophisticated, we may see a gradual but profound shift in how field operations are structured: routine inspections handled by autonomous agents, humans reserved for complex or strategic interventions, and safety improved through constant robot presence.

Moreover, as the inspection and maintenance robotics market continues to expand (it is projected to reach USD 146.9 billion by 2032), economies of scale may make robotics more accessible to a wider range of companies, not just the largest asset-intensive ones. This means that even if robotics are not on your immediate roadmap, it isn’t too soon to begin considering what role they could play and what strong human-robot collaboration that both benefits workforce wellbeing and operational performance looks like for your business.