ANYbotics launches Shift, pitching its inspection robots on the maintenance tickets they create

ANYbotics, the Zurich company known for its four-legged ANYmal inspection robot, has started describing itself through a software number. Its new Shift platform, published on the company's website on 1 October 2026, analyses more than 120,000 inspections a month across over 1,000 industrial assets, according to ANYbotics.

The launch moves the company's pitch from the robot to the plant's maintenance budget. Shift is sold as the layer that plans a robot's rounds, interprets thermal, acoustic and visual readings, and turns an anomaly into a work order inside the systems a refinery or cement works already runs. Whether operators will pay for that layer, and whether it can hold off software-only rivals that work with any robot, is what this article sets out to answer.

Four modules that follow an inspection from map to work order

ANYbotics describes four modules. Shift Maps builds a 3D model of the site, with offline editing, handheld mapping, asset templates and data import. Shift Fleet schedules missions, monitors robots live and lets a remote operator step in. Shift Insight runs visual, thermal, acoustic and vibration analysis and tracks the health of each asset over time. Shift Connect exposes a REST API and links to maintenance management (CMMS) and process control (DCS) systems, with notifications and a partner ecosystem.

The integration list is long. ANYbotics names SAP, IBM Maximo, GE APM, Yokogawa, Cognite, Siemens Energy, Palantir, Emerson, Honeywell, AVEVA PI, Oracle EAM, Seeq and ABB among the platforms Shift connects to. The software runs as a managed cloud service operated by ANYbotics, with regional hosting in the EU and the US and an on-premise option, and the company cites its ISO 27001 certification. ANYbotics did not publish prices.

The customer numbers are maintenance outcomes, and they are the company's own

ANYbotics says robots at Vicat's Péry cement plant carried out more than 33,000 inspections across 450 points in 16 months, that Grace's Düren plant gained 1.5% in uptime, that a 500 MW power plant in Ireland cut reactive maintenance by 40%, and that Outokumpu sites reduced staff exposure to hazardous areas by 80%. Julie Clavler, director of digital service solutions at waste-to-energy builder and operator Kanadevia Inova, said on the Shift page that the software helps her team plan missions, capture structured field data and find anomalies across a plant.

The arithmetic behind the Péry figure is modest in a revealing way. Spread over 450 points and 16 months, 33,000 inspections come to about 73 readings per point, or 4.6 per point each month, by ROBOTNESS's calculation. That is the cadence of a disciplined human round, far from continuous sensing, which suggests the value ANYbotics is selling lies in consistency and in data that lands in the right asset record. A software vendor could in principle offer the same, which is where the competitive picture gets interesting.

A robot maker moving up the stack

ANYbotics is headquartered in Zurich with an office in San Francisco and more than 200 employees, the company said in February 2026. In December 2024 it raised $60 million led by Qualcomm Ventures and Supernova Invest, taking total funding past $130 million; its February 2026 boilerplate put the figure above $150 million. Customers it named in 2024 included BP, Equinor, Petrobras, Novelis and Outokumpu. In February 2026 Yokogawa agreed to integrate its OpreX Robot Management Core software with ANYmal, including the explosion-proof ANYmal X, aimed at oil and gas, power and metals customers in Asia and the Middle East. ROBOTNESS reported in June on the company's new Barcelona engineering hub.

Energy Robotics of Darmstadt sells the opposite model. Its software orchestrates robots and drones from several makers, including Boston Dynamics, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and DJI, so customers are not tied to one machine. It raised a $13.5 million Series A in October 2025, co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Climate Investment, and says its platform has completed more than one million inspections for customers such as Shell, BP, BASF and E.ON. Gecko Robotics of Pittsburgh, whose robots climb, fly and swim over structures, feeds that data into its Cantilever platform; it said it was valued at $1.25 billion in a Series D led by Cox Enterprises in June 2025.

Climate Investment sits on both sides of that divide. It co-led Energy Robotics' Series A and joined ANYbotics' strategic round in September 2025, according to ROBOTNESS records. At least one specialist energy investor is therefore backing both the vertically integrated model and the hardware-agnostic one.

For plant operators the practical change is that inspection results arrive as structured asset records with a ticket attached, instead of a robot log someone must read and retype. That matters most where maintenance staff are scarce and sites are dangerous: refineries, cement kilns, smelters and power stations, the sectors ANYbotics already serves.

What the launch page leaves open

Shift's integrations are listed, not documented, so it is unclear which are certified connectors and which are API-level partnerships. The page does not say whether Shift can command third-party robots or drones, the heart of Energy Robotics' pitch. Pricing, and whether Shift is bundled with ANYmal contracts or sold separately, is undisclosed. Every performance figure is self-reported, and the Irish power plant is not named.