Figure AI Demos 24/7 Autonomous Robot

Figure AI is backed by a powerhouse of tech giants, securing $675 million in a February 2024 funding round that included Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, and the venture arms of Amazon and OpenAI. This investment valued the two-year-old startup at $2.6 billion, signaling strong confidence in its vision for humanoid robotics before it even had a commercial product. The company was founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, a serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded the talent marketplace Vettery (acquired for $110 million) and the eVTOL company Archer Aviation, which he took public at a $2.7 billion valuation. Adcock assembled a team with talent from established robotics leaders like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, and Google DeepMind to accelerate development. A key strategic move was Figure's collaboration with OpenAI, announced in February 2024, to develop specialized AI models for its robots. This partnership aimed to leverage OpenAI's advanced multimodal models to enhance the robots' ability to process language and reason, accelerating Figure's commercial timeline. However, in a strategic pivot, Figure ended the collaboration in early 2025, citing a major internal breakthrough in "end-to-end robot AI." At BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina plant, the Figure 02 robots are moving beyond trials into practical application. The initial use case involves loading sheet metal parts into welding fixtures, a physically demanding task for human workers. The robots must place parts with a 5-millimeter tolerance in just two seconds, demonstrating a balance of speed and high precision. The Figure 02 robot stands approximately 170 cm tall, weighs 70 kg, and has a payload capacity of 20 kg. It's equipped with sophisticated cameras, microphones, and redesigned five-fingered hands with 16 degrees of freedom, powered by Nvidia GPU-based modules for onboard inference. Lessons learned from the BMW deployment, particularly around hardware failures in the forearm, are already informing the design of the next-generation Figure 03. The push into real-world applications is heating up globally, with multiple companies in China, such as Unitree and Fourier, also making significant strides. The industry is seeing a rise in competitions, like the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, which test capabilities in tasks from running to kickboxing, accelerating development and showcasing both advancements and current limitations.