Diligent Robotics develops socially intelligent mobile robots for healthcare environments, focused on automating routine logistical tasks so clinical staff can concentrate on patient care. Founded in 2017 by Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu - social robotics experts trained at MIT and Georgia Tech - the company addresses a concrete problem in hospital operations: nurses and clinical staff spend substantial time transporting medications, lab samples, and supplies rather than attending to patients directly.
The company's flagship platform is Moxi, a mobile manipulation robot designed specifically for healthcare settings. Moxi navigates hospital corridors autonomously, retrieves and delivers supplies, and incorporates social intelligence features including patient greetings and friendly gestures. The design philosophy positions the robot as a collaborative teammate rather than a disruptive presence in clinical workflows. Technical capabilities span social robotics, mobile manipulation, robot navigation, and human-robot collaboration - disciplines that intersect autonomous navigation constraints with the complex, human-dense environments of active hospital floors.
Moxi is deployed across health systems throughout the United States. In 2024 alone, the platform saved over 284,000 hours for clinical staff, a metric that reflects accumulated autonomous task completion in live hospital environments. The operational focus centers on robot-assisted logistics: handling the repetitive transport tasks that pull clinical staff away from direct patient interaction. For hospitals facing staffing shortages and increased patient care demands, the system serves as a force multiplier for existing teams rather than a replacement for human workers.