A few weeks ago, I stood before a room full of cleaning industry leaders at Interclean Amsterdam 2026 and asked a question that made some uncomfortable: will we be passive recipients of AI disruption, or active architects of our own transformation? The conversation that followed convinced me that the industry is ready for a sharper, more honest discussion about its future. That's why I wrote a manifesto, inspired by Ruben Nieuwenhuis of the New Amsterdam AI Coalition.
The cleaning industry is at a tipping point. For decades, our business model was linear - labour multiplied by hours, margins eroded by procurement-driven tenders, innovation measured in slightly better chemicals and marginally faster vacuums. That era is ending. We are not just entering a new technology cycle. We are entering a fundamentally different economy, one in which intelligence - not labour hours - becomes the primary carrier of value.
The first signs are already everywhere. Robotic scrubbers navigating through warehouses. IoT sensors that measure visitor flows in real time. AI planning engines that can predict cleaning needs with surprising accuracy. VR training that finally breaks the language barriers of a workforce consisting of dozens of nationalities. These are not laboratory experiments - they are in production, in airports, hospitals and corporate campuses, today.
And yet our industry is losing ground. The labour market is shrinking, margins leave no room for investment and three mindsets imprison us: 'cleaning is simple', 'technology is too expensive', and - most damagingly - 'our people can't handle it'. These assumptions become self-fulfilling prophecies. The deepest trap is not a lack of ideas; it is the protection mode that sets in when an industry tries to defend 10 positions at once and loses the ability to act.
A manifesto for the next decade
After my presentation at Interclean Amsterdam on AI in cleaning, I published a manifesto as a starting point for the next decade - a deliberate provocation written to give the industry something to react to, discuss and build on. It describes nine chapters, from the advent of the intelligence economy and the ground we are losing, to the promise of an intelligent cleaning business, the mental models leaders must adopt, the five pillars of execution (Smart Infrastructure, Data & AI Access for Every Cleaner, Talent & Innovation, Compass & Labs, and Trust Infrastructure), the dilemmas we cannot avoid, the choices that determine the direction of a business, and the coalitions we must build together.
At its core, the manifesto carries a simple belief: AI does not replace cleaners. It makes them visible. It transforms the knowledge that lives in their hands into data that the world can appreciate. It transforms the night shift worker from an anonymous expense into a named, skilled, data-empowered professional - working alongside robots, supported by training in their own language, and finally seen by the world they serve.
The manifesto argues that AI literacy at board level is non-negotiable, that open standards such as the Facility Data Standard are essential, and that platforms such as Interclean and ISSA are the convening force we need to harness more purposefully. It is an invitation to cleaning companies, technology providers, clients, training institutes and employees to stop defending the past and design the future together.
Read the full Cleaning Industry AI Manifesto at: cleaningmanifestai.lovable.app
Building together
If you want to brainstorm about AI in cleaning and how it can elevate our industry, I'd love to talk to you. Get in touch via the FacilityApps contact form, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me directly at dirk@FacilityApps.com.
The question is not what someone should do. The question is: what will you do today or this week?