Coronavirus appears to be accelerating the adoption of workplace automation and the trend is likely to stick around after the pandemic.

Why it matters: Adopting robots and AI could keep businesses going during social distancing and reduce the health risk to human workers. But with unemployment already at Great Depression levels, many of the jobs lost to automation might never be regained.

What's happening: Brain Corp, a San Diego-based company that develops software for use in autonomous cleaning robots, reports its customers are employing robots about 13% more than they were in the months before the pandemic.

The big picture: Past experience suggests the advance of automation happens in sudden surges and economic downturns are often a trigger.

What to watch: Robots will be particularly attractive to front-line businesses that have to stay open during the pandemic.

Yes, but: Companies in the robotics business say their products are meant to augment human workers, not replace them. But with tens of millions of Americans unemployed, it's impossible not to fear that a surge in automation could make a post-pandemic job recovery even more difficult.

The other side: Some experts believe the immediate threat to jobs from automation during the pandemic is overstated.

The bottom line: The robots were already coming for jobs, and the pandemic will give employers additional incentive to automate where they can. But for now, the far bigger threat to jobs is the brute fact of an economic depression.

Go deeper: Coronavirus-related recession could spike automation

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Coronavirus speeds the way for robots in the workplace - Axios