On the bustling streets of downtown Kansas City, a new kind of security guard is making its presence felt—one that doesn’t take coffee breaks or call in sick. Meet LANCE, the K5 Autonomous Security Robot, whose journey from the subways of New York City to the heart of Missouri has been anything but ordinary. In a country that loves a good comeback story, LANCE’s second act is turning heads and sparking conversations about the future of security.
According to KICK FM, LANCE was first deployed by the New York City Police Department in September 2023, tasked with patrolling the subway system. The hope was that this bullet-shaped, sub-5-foot, 420-pound robot would serve as a high-tech deterrent to crime in one of the busiest urban environments in the world. However, the reality proved more complicated. Rather than freeing up human officers, LANCE required constant protection from them, undermining the efficiency the robot was supposed to bring. By February 2024, the experiment had fizzled out, and LANCE was looking for a new assignment.
That opportunity came when Patmos Tech, a software and data hosting company, moved into the old Kansas City Star building on McGee Street. The company, which has already invested up to half a billion dollars in transforming the historic site into a state-of-the-art data center, quickly encountered security problems. Shattered glass from car break-ins littered the ground, intruders attempted nighttime entries, and even gunfire from the nearby highway left several windows covered in blue tarps. "Even with 24/7 security, it’s like, do you really at two in the morning want to send one individual by themselves to, you know, go inspect something? It’s a big building, right, it’s essentially a full city block," said Joe Morgan, Patmos’s Chief Operating Officer, in an interview with The Kansas City Star.
Enter LANCE, short for Lancelot—a nod to the company’s castle-themed logo. The robot, manufactured by California-based Knightscope, was recommended to Patmos at an Economic Club of Kansas City event. Equipped with a 360-degree camera and artificial intelligence, LANCE can be programmed to patrol specific routes and can even be controlled by phone. It spends about 20 hours a day, seven days a week, rolling through the Crossroads district, gathering data, greeting passersby, and—most importantly—serving as both a tool for human security staff and a visual deterrent to would-be criminals.
While LANCE is not an official member of the Kansas City Police Department, its contributions have already been tangible. On August 29, 2025, the robot captured footage of an attempted burglary, including the suspects’ license plates. "A few times, people have tried to break in. LANCE has been able to capture their license plate, and we’ve been able to track it to individuals that have done this at other places and it becomes more information for the police officers to use," Morgan explained. Although Kansas City police have not confirmed direct use of LANCE’s footage, a spokesperson told The Kansas City Star, "I do think it’s fair to say that detectives regularly canvass scenes for surveillance footage. This includes businesses or Ring doorbell footage. If this robot provides another avenue for video evidence, then detectives would seek it out in the same way they do footage from businesses."
LANCE’s arrival is part of a broader trend of robots being integrated into security, healthcare, military, and delivery services across the United States. According to KICK FM, robots similar to LANCE are now patrolling several locations in the Kansas City area. Knightscope, the company behind the K5 robot, has been shipping its machines since 2015 and has seen them deployed in malls, hospitals, and other venues where human presence can be sparse or risky. In fact, another K5 robot named Marshall reportedly helped lower crime rates at Brywood Centre, a shopping mall in southeast Kansas City, according to multiple television reports last summer.
Knightscope CEO William Santana Li told The Kansas City Star that the robots are designed for "the most boring places"—areas where it doesn’t make sense to have a human officer standing guard for hours on end. "You need to put the robots there in the most boring places and then redeploy those humans to where they’re actually needed. Sometimes people don’t listen, but that’s our kind of consistent advice to people," Li said.
For Patmos, the robot’s value goes beyond just security. The company’s data center, which currently occupies only about 15% of the building’s vast space, holds millions of dollars in digital storage. Another tenant, Nebius, an AI company based in Amsterdam, has also moved in, and plans are underway to renovate the old printing press area into a convention center. All told, Patmos anticipates spending over $1 billion on the property. With so much at stake, Morgan says the need for reliable security is paramount. "So LANCE is actually a tool for the security people as much as anything else, and it’s also just a visual deterrent. So we want the neighborhood to look like it’s active, and we want people to think that this area has got activity," he said.
But LANCE has become more than just a security measure; it’s something of a local celebrity. "I think there’s like five different TikToks out there now about LANCE. He’s definitely the most popular employee, I think, at Patmos right now. And he brings a smile to people’s faces... We’re a tech company, and that’s kind of our focus. And so I think it helps express that," Morgan shared. The robot’s friendly greetings and futuristic presence have even made it a symbol of the company’s commitment to innovation and community engagement.
Despite its rocky start in New York, LANCE appears to have found its stride in Kansas City. Morgan is optimistic about the robot’s future in the company. "I think LANCE will be around a long time. I think just the benefit we’ve seen already for the existing security staff has kind of sold me on it," he said. As robots like LANCE continue to roll out across the city, the line between science fiction and reality keeps blurring—sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
With investments climbing and technology advancing, Kansas City’s embrace of robotic security may well serve as a model for other urban centers grappling with similar challenges. For now, LANCE is on duty, patrolling the streets, and writing a new chapter in the story of American comebacks—one wheel at a time.
