The greatest technological revolutions solve human problems. Ours is simple and urgent:
The people who care for us are running out of time to care.
The Challenge Beneath the Surface
By 2030, one in six people in the world will be over 60. Demand for care is skyrocketing, but the workforce to provide it is shrinking.
In hospitals and senior living communities, 70% of operational costs now go to labor, yet staff still spend hours each day doing physically demanding, repetitive tasks like hauling laundry, cleaning, organizing supplies instead of connecting with patients or residents.
It's not a lack of compassion. It's a lack of capacity.
This imbalance drains caregivers, limits quality of care, and pressures every part of the healthcare system. The physical work behind caregiving has become one of the most overlooked labor crises of our time.
The Technological Turning Point
Until recently, robotics couldn't operate safely or effectively in human-centered environments. Machines were either too rigid, too expensive, or too unintelligent for the unpredictable spaces where real care happens.
That has changed.
The rise of AI foundation models for robotics, systems that learn from human demonstrations, language, and visual input, allows robots to perceive, reason, and act with judgment, not just precision. For the first time, machines can learn to perform physical tasks the way humans do: by observing, understanding, and improving.
This is the inflection point.
The same breakthroughs that let AI process words and images now enable it to work in the real world, beside real people. And these capabilities will continue to advance with time and effort from leading robotic foundation model companies.
Our Mission
Sidekick Robotics exists to support the physical side of care so humans can focus on the human side.
Our first product, Sidekick 1.0, is a mobile, intelligent robot that handles laundry, one of the most time-intensive and physically straining workflows in care communities. It autonomously navigates, loads, folds, and delivers linens, creating an end-to-end solution that saves hours per shift.
We start with laundry because it's the unseen backbone of caregiving, high-frequency, high-impact, and universally needed. By lifting that weight, we free caregivers to focus on what they trained for: to care.
Why Now
The demographic curve is non-negotiable: the world is aging faster than it can adapt. At the same time, robotics intelligence is advancing faster than any point in history.
These two forces, a historic labor shortage and a breakthrough in machine capability, are converging right now.
Care environments, once slow to adopt automation, are now open to it out of necessity. Foundation models have lowered the cost and complexity of robotic deployment. What was research yesterday is productizable today.
That convergence makes 2025 the moment to bring robotics to caregiving, not as an experiment, but as an answer, automating back-of-house tasks to increase human quality of care.
The Broader Vision
Sidekick's vision extends beyond laundry. The same AI-native platform that automates one workflow can scale to others, from materials handling to cleaning to logistics, across healthcare and beyond. Read more about our platform vision.
But caregiving remains our core. It's where automation delivers both economic value and human impact. Because when we lift the physical burden of care, we strengthen the emotional core of it.
Founders' Reflection
At Stanford, we saw how AI foundation models were transforming robotics. Sidekick Robotics exists to bring that same transformation to the physical world, to create intelligent systems that extend what humans can achieve.
Our mission begins with caregiving because that's where the challenge is most urgent. But the platform we're building, and the foundation model behind it, are built for the broader economy of motion—where work still depends on the limits of human reach.
Building the future of physical automation,
Andrew Raffi Ansell and Mark Garo Ansell
Co-Founders, Sidekick Robotics
PART 1
Our Origin Story: Why Robotics for Caregiving
Learn why we founded Sidekick Robotics and how we're addressing the healthcare labor crisis through AI-powered physical automation.
PART 2
The Next Chapter: Building for the Economy of Motion
How we're thinking about the broader platform opportunity and expanding beyond healthcare to transform physical automation across industries.
About Sidekick Robotics
Sidekick Robotics is creating the AI Sidekick for Physical Work, robots that learn and perform the complex tasks that keep hospitals and care communities running. We're tackling the healthcare labor shortage by reducing burnout, turnover, and rising costs, so caregivers can focus on what matters most: patients.
Media Contact: founders@sidekickrobotics.ai