As it gets ready to expand outside hospital logistics, Diligent Robotics said on Thursday that it has hired two senior executives from robotaxi company Cruise.
For Diligent, whose Moxi robot manages non-patient-facing duties including transporting supplies, drugs, and lab samples in hospitals, the hires mark a deliberate pivot to wider commercial uses.
Todd Brugger, a former operations chief at Cruise, becomes chief operations officer, and Rashed Haq, the director of AI and robots at Cruise, becomes chief technology officer.
According to the company, Haq will spearhead Diligent’s AI roadmap and have experience in implementing extensive autonomous systems. With the goal of expanding Diligent’s robotic deployments throughout industries, Brugger will be in charge of operations and commercial strategy.
Andrea Thomaz, CEO of Diligent Robotics, stated, “We need Rashed and Todd’s experience scaling autonomous vehicle technology as we expand into broader commercial applications.”
According to the business, Moxi, their humanoid robot, has saved about 600,000 staff hours by completing over a million deliveries in over 30 hospitals across the United States. Diligent intends to deploy more than 3,000 robots by 2030 in an effort to establish itself as a leader in embodied AI.
