Methodology

How DEPLOY verifies

DEPLOY is a registry of physical-AI deployments: robots doing real work in the real world. This page explains what we record, what we require before recording it, and how we represent uncertainty. Our aim is simple. Every entry should be checkable.

What counts as a deployment

A deployment, in DEPLOY, means a specific robot doing real work at a named site, with a source. That standard excludes a lot on purpose:

• Not announcements. A press release, a partnership, a letter of intent, or a stated plan to deploy is not a deployment. We may note it as context, but it does not become a deployment record until robots are actually operating.
• Not shipments or sales. Units sold, units shipped, or fleet-size goals are manufacturer metrics, not deployments. A robot in a warehouse waiting to be sold is not doing work.
• Not demonstrations. Trade-show demos, staged videos, and lab tests are not deployments.
• Not the robot’s own factory. A company building its robots in its own plant is manufacturing, not deploying. The robot has to be doing work for an operator at a site.

This is why our counts are often smaller than the headline figures published elsewhere. That is the point. A shorter, verified list is more useful than a longer, claimed one.

Verified vs. company-claimed

We distinguish two things that are often blurred together:

• Verified: independently sourced. Real work, at a named site, supported by reporting, primary documents, or regulatory filings. Verified entries carry the source.
• Company-claimed: figures or statuses asserted by a manufacturer or operator that we have not independently confirmed. We may record these, but we label them as claims and attribute them to their source. We do not present a company’s claim as established fact.

When a company states a figure, whether a fleet size, a safety record, or a unit count, we attribute it (“the company states...”) rather than asserting it ourselves. The distinction between what is claimed and what is verified is the core of what this registry is for.

How we handle sources

• Every deployment, incident, and material figure carries at least one source. Incidents involving injury or fatality require at least two independent sources.
• We prefer primary sources (company filings, regulatory documents, court records, official statements) over secondary reporting, and secondary reporting over aggregators.
• Where sources conflict, we say so. Where a figure is contested, in-talks, or speculative, we flag it rather than pick a number.
• We distinguish metrics that are easily confused: funding raised versus valuation, cumulative deployment versus currently-active fleet, claimed versus verified.

How we handle uncertainty

We would rather record less, accurately, than more, sloppily. Where we do not have a verifiable figure, we leave it blank rather than estimate. Where a status is ambiguous, we describe it rather than force it into a clean category. Records are updated as the facts change, and prior states remain part of the history.

Corrections

The registry is a living record. If you believe an entry is wrong, out of date, or missing a source, tell us. We correct the record and note the change.