Why the cleaning industry must architect its own AI future
A few weeks ago, I stood in front of a room of cleaning industry leaders at Interclean Amsterdam 2026 and asked a question that made some people 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 debate about its future. That is why I wrote a manifest, inspired by Ruben Nieuwenhuis from New Amsterdam AI Coalition.
The cleaning industry is at a tipping point. For decades, our business model has been linear — labour multiplied by hours, margins eroded by procurement-driven tendering, innovation measured in slightly better chemicals and marginally faster vacuums. That era is ending. We are not entering yet another technology cycle. We are entering a fundamentally different economy, one in which intelligence — not labour hours — becomes the primary unit of value.
The first signals are already everywhere. Robotic scrubbers navigating warehouses. IoT sensors reading foot traffic in real time. AI scheduling engines that can predict cleaning demand with striking accuracy. VR-based training that finally dissolves the language barriers of a workforce made up of dozens of nationalities. These are not lab experiments — they are in production, in airports, hospitals, and corporate campuses, today.
And yet our industry is losing ground. The labour pool is shrinking, margins leave no room for investment, and three frames keep us stuck: “cleaning is simple,” “technology is too expensive,” and — most damaging — “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 kicks in when an industry tries to defend ten positions at once and loses the capacity to act.
A manifest for the next decade
Following my presentation at Interclean Amsterdam on AI in Cleaning, I published a manifest as a starting point for the next decade — a deliberate provocation written to give the industry something to react to, argue with, and build upon. It lays out nine chapters, from the arrival of the intelligence economy and the ground we are losing, to the promise of an intelligent cleaning company, the mental models leaders must adopt, the five pillars of execution (Smart Infrastructure, Data & AI Access for Every Cleaner, Talent & Innovation, Compass & Laboratories, and Trust Infrastructure), the dilemmas we cannot avoid, the choices that define a company’s trajectory, and the coalitions we must build together.
At its heart, the manifest holds a simple conviction: AI does not replace cleaners. It makes them visible. It turns the knowledge that lives in their hands into data the world can value. It transforms the nightshift worker from an anonymous cost line into a named, skilled, data-empowered professional — working side by side with robots, supported by training in their own language, and finally seen by the world they serve.
The manifest argues that AI literacy at the executive level is non-negotiable, that open standards like the Facility Data Standard are essential, and that platforms like Interclean and ISSA are the convening power we must use more deliberately. It is an invitation to cleaning companies, technology providers, clients, training institutes, and workers to stop defending the past and start co-designing the future.
Read the full Cleaning Industry AI Manifest: cleaningmanifestai.lovable.app
Let’s build together
If you want to brainstorm about AI in cleaning and how it can elevate our industry, I would love to talk. Reach out 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 starting today of this week?
