Window-washing robots are working on Manhattan skyscrapers

Published

2 years ago

August 14, 2023

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Skyline Robotics is disrupting the century-old practice of window washing with new technology that the startup hopes will redefine a risky industry.

Its window-washing robot, Ozmo, is now operational in Tel Aviv and New York, and has worked on major Manhattan buildings like 10 Hudson Yards, 383 Madison, 825 3rd Avenue, and 7 World Trade Center in partnership with the city’s largest commercial window cleaner Platinum and real estate giant The Durst Organization.

The machine is suspended from the side of a high-rise. A robotic arm with a brush attached to the end cleans the window following instructions from a LiDAR camera, which uses laser technology to map 3D environments. The camera maps the building’s exterior and identifies the parameters of the windows.

“What the LiDAR is actually doing as the basket is descending is sort of painting itself a picture of the facade that it’s facing,” Blum said.

Although the Ozmo is controlled by a human operator at the top of the building, chief operating officer and founder Ross Blum said that the robot could be operated fully remotely.

“That person, other than regulation, doesn’t actually have to be there for our sake,” Blum said. “We could, in theory, remote-control Ozmo from different parts of the world.”

Reverse osmosis removes contaminants from the water, hence the name Ozmo. According to Blum, this makes the cleaning process more efficient.

“We don’t need a separate squeegee and a separate brush to get a perfectly clean window,” he said. “It’s one motion,” he said.

The current cost of the Ozmo is approximately $500,000, which has a three-to-five-year payback for building owners, according to Skyline Robotics board member and Platinum CEO James Halpin.

A changing workforce

The machine is part of a new wave of technology that can replicate human work. In recent months, artificial-intelligence innovations like ChatGPT have dominated headlines, prompting questions about employment vulnerabilities in customer service, writing and computer programming gigs.

A 2020 report by the World Economic Forum states that 85 million jobs will be displaced by 2025 due to the “robot revolution,” but that 97 million jobs requiring “reskilling and retraining” will be generated.

Jobs in maintenance and construction, like window washing, were ranked as having a “medium” share of tasks (30% to 70%) susceptible to automation, according to a 2016 study by the Brookings Institution.

Platinum’s Halpin said his company was interested in supporting the Ozmo because of a worker shortage in the field of high-rise window washing.

“Currently, we are experiencing a labor shortage in all real blue-collar fields in New York City,” Halpin said. “We could hire another 20% just to keep up with the current work that we have at this point.”

Both Halpin and Blum said their goal eventually is not to replace human workers but to “retrain and reassign” window washers to operate the technology.

But logistically, the Ozmo cuts down on the amount of people needed to clean a building from a team of three to four human window washers to one operator.

The Ozmo has some window washers, like Jose Nieves, a 23-year veteran of the industry and window washer at Rockefeller center, concerned about their livelihoods. He believes the dangers of window washing are overblown and that human labor should be preserved.

“Of course, there are dangers with our profession, but we are skilled, trained workers who take those risks very seriously much like many dangerous jobs that exist in this country,” Nieves said. “Are there no possible dangers associated with a robot operating heavy equipment hundreds of feet above people’s heads?”

Nieves is represented by the SEIU 32BJ, the property service union for many of the workers on the East Coast. According to the organization, there are 500 to 550 unionized window washers in New York City who earn $31.69/hour during the peak summer season.

“As a society we should not be cutting costs on the backs of workers,” Nieves said. “I would say we have been doing a great job without these robots. Don’t fix it unless it’s broken.”

Robot-human collaboration

A growing legion of futurists, like senior research associate at Harvard’s Labor and Worklife Program Aleksandra Przegalińska, study how humans and robots can collaborate, and specifically how machines can take on tedious or dangerous tasks for humans.

Because the Ozmo technology is so new, she said it’s hard to fully evaluate, but the opportunity to shift human labor away from a dangerous field is appealing.

She cites one example when machines, like the Moxi, were deployed to deliver medication to infected patients during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Certainly, in those areas where your health, your existence is at risk as a human, using a machine, a robot is something worth considering,” Przegalińska said.

Skyline has been working on the robot since 2017 and the company raised $6.5 million in their pre-Series A funding, in addition to a grant from the Israeli government.

Technology

CyberArk’s stock jumps on report Palo Alto Networks in talks to buy company for over $20 billion

Published

1 hour ago

July 29, 2025

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CyberArk's stock jumps on report Palo Alto Networks in talks to buy company for over billion

Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, looks on during the closing bell at the Nasdaq Market in New York City, U.S., March 25, 2025.

Jeenah Moon | Reuters

CyberArk shares soared as much as 18% on Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal reported that cybersecurity provider Palo Alto Networks has held discussions to buy the identity management software maker for over $20 billion.

Cloud security is becoming an increasingly critical piece of the enterprise tech stack, especially as rapid advancements in artificial intelligence bring with them a whole new set of threats, and as ransomware attacks become more commonplace.

Founded in 2005, Palo Alto Networks has emerged in recent years as a consolidator in the cybersecurity industry and has grown into the biggest player in the space by market cap, with a valuation of over $130 billion. CEO Nikesh Arora, who was appointed to the job in 2018, has been on a spending spree, snapping up Protect AI in a deal that closed in July, and in 2023 buying Talon Cyber Security, Dig Security and Zycada Networks.

But CyberArk would represent by far Arora’s biggest bet yet. The Israeli company, which went public in 2014, provides technology that helps companies streamline the process of logging on to applications for employees.

CyberArk faces competition from Microsoft, Okta and IBM‘s HashiCorp. Another rival, SailPoint, returned to the public markets in February.

With Tuesday’s rally, CyberArk shares climbed to a record, surpassing their prior all-time high reached in February. The stock is up 29% this year, pushing the company’s market cap to almost $21 billion, after jumping 52% in 2024. Palo Alto shares, meanwhile, slid 3.5% on the report and are now up about 9% for the year.

Representatives from Palo Alto Networks and CyberArk declined to comment.

During the first quarter, CyberArk generated around $11.5 million in net income on around $318 million in revenue, which was up 43% from a year earlier.

It’s been an active stretch for big deals in the cyber market. Google said in March that it was spending $32 billion on Wiz, its largest acquisition on record by far, and a purchase intended to bolster its cloud business with greater AI security technology.

Networking giant Cisco also made its biggest deal ever in the security space, buying Splunk in 2023 for $28 billion. Splunk’s technology helps businesses monitor and analyze their data to minimize the risk of hacks and resolve technical issues faster.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report

WATCH: Cisco CEO on acquisition of Splunk

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins: $28 billion Splunk deal will be a significant financial growth driver

Technology

Spotify stock falls on revenue miss, lackluster guidance

Published

7 hours ago

July 29, 2025

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Spotify stock falls on revenue miss, lackluster guidance

Thomas Fuller | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Spotify shares dropped about 4% Tuesday after the music streaming platform fell short of Wall Street’s expectations and posted weak guidance for the current quarter.

Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:

Loss: Loss of .42 euros vs earnings of 1.90 euros per share expected
Revenue: 4.19 billion euros vs. 4.26 billion expected

The Sweden-based music platform’s revenues rose 10% from about 3.81 billion euros in the year-ago period. The company posted a net loss of 86 million euros, or a loss of .42 euros per share, down from net income of 225 million euros, or 1.10 euros per share a year ago.

Third-quarter guidance came up short of Wall Street’s forecast.

The company expects revenues to reach 4.2 billion euros, compared to a 4.47 billion euro estimate from StreetAccount. Spotify said the forecast accounts for a 490-basis-point headwind due to foreign exchange rates.

Samsung backs South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions ahead of IPO

Published

10 hours ago

July 29, 2025

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The Rebel-Quad is the second-generation product from Rebellions and is made up of four Rebel AI chips. Rebellions, a South Korean firm, is looking to rival companies like Nvidia in AI chips.

Rebellions

South Korean artificial intelligence chip startup Rebellions has raised money from tech giant Samsung and is targeting a funding round of up to $200 million ahead of a public listing, the company’s management told CNBC on Tuesday.

Last year, Rebellions merged with another startup in South Korea called Sapeon, creating a firm that is being positioned as one of the country’s promising rivals to Nvidia.

Rebellions is currently raising money and is targeting funding of between $150 million and $200 million, Sungkyue Shin, chief financial officer of the startup, told CNBC on Tuesday.

Samsung’s investment in Rebellions last week was part of that, Shin said, though he declined to say how much the tech giant poured in.

Since its founding in 2020, Rebellions has raised $220 million, Shin added.

The current funding round is ongoing and Shin said Rebellions is talking to its current investors as well as investors in Korea and globally to participate in the capital raise. Rebellions has some big investors, including South Korean chip giant SK Hynix, telecommunication firms SK Telecom and Korea Telecom, and Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco.

AI chip startup Rebellions looks to raise up to $200 million ahead of IPO

Rebellions was last valued at $1 billion. Shin said the current round of funding would push the valuation over $1 billion but declined to give specific figure.

Rebellions is aiming for an initial public offering once this funding round has closed.

“Our master plan is going public,” Shin said.

Rebellions designs chips that are focused on AI inferencing rather than training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.

With the backing of major South Korean firms and investors, Rebellions is hoping to make a global play where it will look to challenge Nvidia and AMD as well as a slew of other startups in the inferencing space.

Samsung collaboration

Rebellions has been working with Samsung to bring its second-generation chip, Rebel, to market. Samsung owns a chip manufacturing business, also known as foundry. Four Rebel chips are put together to make the Rebel-Quad, the product that Rebellions will eventually sell. A Rebellions spokesperson said the chip will be launched later this year.

The funding will partly go toward Rebellions’ product development. Rebellions is currently testing its chip which will eventually be produced on a larger scale by Samsung.

“Initial results have been very promising,” Sunghyun Park, CEO of Rebellions, told CNBC on Tuesday.

South Korean AI startup Rebellions says tariffs could delay IPO by 'a little bit'

Park said Samsung invested in Rebellions partly because of the the good results that the chip has so far produced.

Samsung is manufacturing Rebellions’ semiconductor using its 4 nanometer process, which is among the leading-edge chipmaking nodes. For comparison, Nvidia’s current Blackwell chips use the 4 nanometer process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Rebellions will also use Samsung’s high bandwidth memory, known as HBM3e. This type of memory is stacked and is required to handle large data processing loads.

That could turn out to be a strategic win for Samsung, which is a very distant second to TSMC in terms of market share in the foundry business. Samsung has been looking to boost its chipmaking division. Samsung Electronics recently entered into a $16.5 billion contract for supplying semiconductors to Tesla.