Sarcos pivots to robotics AI software, to reduce workforce by 150 employees

Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation announced that it is pivoting its business to focus on the larger, near-term opportunity of its robotic artificial intelligence and machine learning software platform. As a result of streamlining its business, Sarcos will reduce its workforce by approximately 150 employees. Affected employees will receive 60 days’ notice of termination, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Also, Sarcos intends to close its Pittsburgh office and consolidate operations in Salt Lake City. Sarcos had previously announced that it would cease manufacturing operations in its Pittsburgh location. “The underlying power of what Sarcos offers is in the software we have developed over many years,” said Laura Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sarcos. “After continued extensive analysis of our business that led to a deeper understanding of the risks and work necessary to bring our robotic systems to market, we determined that our AI software platform offers the greatest risk-adjusted revenue opportunity for the company in the near- and mid-term. We believe that our AI software platform will enable, for the majority of the industrial robots being sold around the world, a dramatic reduction in robotic training times while also making industrial robots far more agile, meaning they can perform more tasks with greater variability similar to how humans can perform a wide variety of tasks. In our lab environment and in simulations, we have trained commercially available robotic arms to do simple tasks in minutes.”