Business · Companies · 12 hrs ago
Pronto expands from home services into data for robotics
Pronto began offering on-demand home services in India in 2025, connecting households with trained cleaners and other professionals.
The company says it has served more than 500,000 households in 11 cities.
In July 2026, it introduced Verified, an optional premium service in which workers wear cameras during visits.
The recordings are intended to help train AI for robots and other machines, which need examples of real-world movement and tasks.
In October, Pronto founder Anjali Sardana set up San Francisco-based Provision Labs, which will collect data to train and test physical AI systems.
Provision Labs is acquiring Mumbai-based Basilisk Industries, a company focused on technology that helps machines interpret their surroundings.
How Pronto’s service network and Provision Labs work together is unclear, and Pronto declined to comment; the camera-based data collection has also raised concerns about worker privacy, while the company says personal information is removed and footage is anonymised.
Pronto began as a domestic services platform in India in 2025 and says it has served more than half a million households across 11 cities.
The company is collecting footage of household work through its opt-in Verified service, which uses cameras worn by participating workers.
In October 2026, Pronto founder Anjali Sardana set up San Francisco-based Provision Labs to collect data for training and testing physical AI systems.
Provision Labs later announced it was acquiring Mumbai-based Basilisk Industries, a company focused on machine perception technologies.
The recording initiative has drawn concerns about worker surveillance and privacy, while Pronto says footage is anonymised and used for AI training under its terms.
- Who
- Pronto, founded by Anjali Sardana, and its physical AI venture, Provision Labs.
- What
- Pronto is collecting footage of household work through its Verified service, while Provision Labs gathers data to train and test physical AI systems.
- When
- Pronto entered the domestic services market in 2025; Provision Labs was set up in October 2026.
- Where
- Pronto operates in India, and Provision Labs is based in San Francisco.
- Why
- Physical AI systems need real-world data about movement, spaces and interactions with objects to learn to perform tasks.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Pronto entered India’s domestic services market.
Reports said Pronto was exploring ways to generate physical AI training data from footage of household chores.
Pronto formalised the experiment through Verified, an opt-in premium service using cameras worn by housekeepers and cleaners.
Anjali Sardana set up Provision Labs in San Francisco to collect data for physical AI systems.
Provision Labs announced it was acquiring Mumbai-based Basilisk Industries.
- Pronto launch
- Entered India’s domestic services market in 2025
- Pronto reach
- More than half a million households across 11 cities
- Verified
- Opt-in premium service formalised in July 2026
- Provision Labs
- Set up in San Francisco in October 2026
- Basilisk Industries
- Mumbai-based company founded in 2023
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What people are saying
The raw footage is deleted immediately after the work is done, and no one ever accesses it. For 48 hours, an anonymised, end-to-end encrypted recording is available only to the customer, who can watch it in the app to check the work. After that, we use the anonymised footage for AI training, as our terms set out.