Robots in Commercial Buildings: Security, Cleaning, Inspection and Humanoid Robots Compared

• Robots are already common in large portfolios: JLL found 69 percent of large corporate occupiers have adopted them, but only 23 percent report full integration with efficient operations.
• Security and cleaning robots are the most mature in commercial buildings, and JLL expects 2026 pilots to be led by sanitization and security.
• Inspection robots measure equipment condition and produce maintenance records; security robots observe and report; cleaning robots clean. They are not interchangeable.
• Humanoid robots are real and getting cheaper, but in 2026 they are still in early pilots, mostly in logistics, with short runtimes and light payloads.
• Pilots fail on integration, unused data, tenant perception and cost far more often than on the robot itself. Decide who acts on the robot's findings before it arrives.

JLL's January 2026 research puts numbers on a shift many owners can already see. In its 2025 Global Technology Survey, 69 percent of large corporate occupiers had adopted conventional robots, but only 23 percent reported full integration with efficient operations, and 28 percent said their robots worked but were not producing the results they expected (JLL, January 2026).

JLL expects a significant rise in pilot programs through 2026, led by sanitization and security. It also notes the market is moving to robots as a service, where a monthly fee covers the robot, software and maintenance, which lowers the upfront cost but adds service and building retrofit needs such as charging stations.

The money is following. JLL estimates about $1 billion of robotics venture investment went to commercial real estate uses last year, and puts the autonomous cleaning market at $3.45 billion in 2024, growing to a projected $12.08 billion by 2033.

Labor is a big part of the push. JLL separately estimates that about 2.1 million skilled trades positions, including HVAC technicians, electricians and general maintenance workers, could go unfilled by 2030 (JLL, April 2026). Robots that take on repetitive rounds let scarce people spend their time on the work only they can do.

For a building owner, the question is no longer whether robots belong in buildings. It is which robot, for which job, and what happens to the information it collects.

What they do: patrol a set route, record 360 degree video, read license plates, detect people and vehicles where they should not be, and alert a security operator. They are a visible deterrent as much as a camera on wheels.

Where they are deployed: parking structures, building perimeters, plazas, lobbies and corporate campuses. Knightscope's K5, a 5 foot 5 inch, 420 pound outdoor robot, began patrolling the parking structure perimeter at U.S. Bancorp Tower, Portland's largest office building, in December 2023 (Unico Properties). Indoor security robots from companies such as Cobalt patrol office floors after hours.

Pricing model: mostly subscription. Knightscope describes its autonomous security robot subscriptions as roughly $1 to $11 per hour, set against its own estimate that security guards cost businesses $25 to $65 per hour (Knightscope investor deck, September 2025).

Limits: security robots observe and report; a person still responds. They are built to spot people, vehicles and events, not to judge whether a pump bearing is failing or a sprinkler valve is closed.

What they do: autonomous scrubbers and vacuums clean large open floors on a schedule, usually at night, and report what area they covered.

Where they are deployed: lobbies, corridors, airports, retail and large office floors. Brain Corp, whose software runs many commercial scrubbers including models from Tennant, reports more than 50,000 robots on its platform across six continents, covering more than 300 billion square feet (Brain Corp).

Pricing model: purchase, lease or subscription, often through the cleaning contractor rather than the owner.

Limits: they clean open floors well and leave restrooms, stairs, corners and detail work to people. The data they produce is mostly about cleaning coverage, not building condition, although a robot that passes through the same lobby every night is a natural platform for more.

What they do: walk a route through mechanical rooms, electrical rooms, risers and plant spaces and measure equipment condition: thermal images of electrical gear, sound and vibration from motors and pumps, gauge readings, gas and air quality, and photos of valves, leaks and clearances. Each reading is tied to a specific asset and time.

Where they are deployed: industrial plants, utilities, data centers and, increasingly, commercial buildings. Boston Dynamics had deployed more than 1,000 Spot robots in over 35 countries by 2023, carrying payloads such as thermal cameras, acoustic imagers for air leaks and software that reads analog gauges (Circuit, 2023). FacilityOps runs inspection robots in live data center operations and brings the same approach to office buildings.

Pricing model: purchase plus software, or an inspection service that includes the robot, the analytics and the reporting.

Limits: an inspection robot sees what is on its route and accessible: it does not open live panels, and doors, stairs and elevators shape where it can go. Its value depends on the findings reaching the people who fix things.

Of the four types, the inspection robot is the one built to produce a maintenance record: what was checked, where, when and what changed since last time. That is why it connects directly to programs like preventive maintenance for commercial office buildings.

What they do: a humanoid robot has a human shaped body so it can, in principle, work in spaces built for people: open doors, climb stairs, use tools and handle objects. That is the appeal for buildings, which are full of handles, steps and equipment designed for hands.

Where they are deployed: mostly logistics pilots. Agility Robotics' Digit moved into its first formal job in 2024, moving totes at a GXO facility under a robots as a service agreement (The Robot Report). JLL describes humanoids from Tesla, Figure AI and Agility Robotics as still in semi successful pilots.

Pricing model: falling fast. Unitree lists its G1 humanoid from about $13,500, though street prices run higher (price tracker, July 2026). Enterprise humanoids are usually offered as a service.

Limits: short runtimes, light payloads and partial autonomy. The same tracker lists the G1 at about two hours per charge with an arm payload of about 2 kilograms, and describes it as only partially autonomous. That is fine for demonstrations and research, not yet for a full shift of building rounds.

Humanoids will matter in buildings, especially for tasks that need hands. The practical path is a platform that can use them as they mature, rather than a bet on any single body shape today.

A robot that cannot change floors covers one floor. Elevator makers are building the connection:

• Otis: Cobalt's security robots use Otis's Integrated Dispatch API to call and dispatch Otis elevators, across a bank of cars, by cloud or local connection (Cobalt).
• KONE: KONE's Service Robot API, hosted on AWS, lets cleaning, delivery and greeting robots call elevators and move between floors using real time elevator data (KONE, April 2025).

For owners, that means elevator modernization plans, Wi Fi coverage in back of house spaces, door access control and charging locations all become part of any robot program. Ask early whether your elevators, doors and network can support the robot you are considering, and on which floors.

JLL's finding that 28 percent of occupiers have robots that work but do not deliver expected results points to the real problems, which are rarely mechanical:

• No integration: the robot runs in its own app, separate from the work order system, the building automation system and the security desk.
• Data nobody uses: hours of video and pages of readings with no owner and no process to turn them into action.
• Unclear ownership: nobody is named to manage the robot fleet, so small problems become downtime. JLL flags new roles to oversee robots as one of the organizational barriers.
• Tenant perception: tenants who were not told about cameras on wheels push back on privacy, and a robot in the lobby can read as a gimmick.
• Cost and retrofits: charging, network and door changes that were not budgeted, and no agreed measure of success to justify renewal.

Start from the problem, not the robot. Most buildings have one or two pain points that point clearly to a type:

• Trespassing, car break ins or after hours incidents in the garage: a security patrol robot, connected to the security operations desk.
• Large lobbies and corridors that need nightly floor care: a cleaning robot, usually through the janitorial contractor.
• Equipment failures, water leaks, missed rounds or thin maintenance records: an inspection robot, connected to the work order system.
• Tasks that need hands, such as opening doors or handling objects: watch humanoids closely, but pilot them only where the task is narrow and a person can step in.

Many buildings will end up with more than one type. The key is that each robot has a clear job, a clear owner and a place for its output to go, so the robots add up to a better run building instead of a collection of demos.

• Job: what specific task will the robot do, on which floors and at what times, and what does it replace or add?
• Safety: how does it share space with people, and who can stop it or take control?
• Privacy: what do its cameras and microphones capture, how is it disclosed to tenants and how long is it kept?
• Data ownership: who owns the data, where is it stored and can you export it if you end the contract?
• Action: who acts on what the robot finds, and how do findings reach the work order system?
• Building fit: doors, elevators, Wi Fi, charging and floor surfaces on the route.
• Success: which numbers will decide whether the pilot continues: findings caught, rounds completed, hours saved, losses avoided.
• Exit: what happens to the robot, the data and the building changes if you stop.

Are humanoid robots being used in office buildings?

Only in early pilots. In 2026 most humanoid deployments are in logistics, and current models have short runtimes and light payloads, so they are not yet doing full shifts of building work.

How much does a security robot cost?

Most are offered by subscription. Knightscope describes its robot subscriptions as roughly $1 to $11 per hour, depending on the model and contract.

What is the difference between a security robot and an inspection robot?

A security robot watches for people, vehicles and events and alerts a guard. An inspection robot measures equipment condition, such as heat, sound, gauges and leaks, and produces maintenance records.

Can robots ride elevators?

Some can, where the elevators are connected. Otis and KONE both offer interfaces that let approved robots call elevators and move between floors.

What is robots as a service?

A subscription model where a monthly fee covers the robot, software and maintenance, instead of buying the hardware outright.

FacilityOps AI (RoboSkill Inc.) is an autonomous inspection platform, and it starts from the record, not the robot. A FacilityOps inspection robot walks the route through mechanical rooms, electrical rooms, risers and plant spaces on schedule, and every pass produces a usable record: what it checked, where, when and what changed.

• Measures condition: thermal imaging, sound and vibration, gauge readings, gas and air quality, and photos of valves, leaks, doors and clearances.
• Turns findings into work: each finding is stamped with the time and location, tied to the asset and sent as a work order to the engineer who owns it, and the next pass confirms the fix.
• Watches between passes: sensor hubs at known trouble spots send the robot to look when a reading changes.
• Keeps people in charge: the robot runs fully autonomously, and technicians can take manual control at any time.

The platform is hardware agnostic. Wheeled robots and sensor hubs are the usual delivery today; drones, legged robots, other vendors' robots, a technician's own camera and, as they mature, humanoid robots can all feed the same record. Owners do not have to bet on one body shape to get value now.

It also sits comfortably alongside the other robots in a building. A security robot watching the garage and a cleaning robot scrubbing the lobby are doing different jobs; the inspection robot is the one checking whether the building itself is healthy, and the one whose output lands in the maintenance program.

A FacilityOps pilot is built to avoid the failure points above. It starts with one building and a defined route, connects findings to the existing work order system from day one, names the engineer who owns each type of finding, and agrees the success measures up front: rounds completed, findings caught and closed, and hours returned to the engineering team. Tenants see a robot doing back of house work, not a camera roaming their suites.

Not another robot in the lobby: a record of how every critical system looked on every round.

FacilityOps documents conditions on its route. It does not replace security staff, cleaning crews or licensed testing, and it does not certify compliance.

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