Figure AI Shows Off Robot Living Room Cleanup

Figure AI's Helix 02 system uses a unified AI system to control the robot's entire body, integrating walking, manipulation, and balance. This differs from traditional systems that use separate controllers for locomotion and manipulation. Helix 02 can perform tasks requiring coordinated movement of arms, legs, torso, and hands. The robot uses a hierarchical architecture with three components: a whole-body motion prior trained on human motion data, a sensor-to-action control layer mapping sensory input to motor commands, and a high-level reasoning and planning component. It also uses visual input from palm-mounted cameras and tactile sensing at the fingertips to improve object manipulation. Figure AI has raised over $1 billion in funding, valuing the company at $39 billion. Investors include Parkway Venture Capital, Brookfield Asset Management, NVIDIA, Intel Capital, and others. The funding will accelerate the development of general-purpose humanoid robots for real-world environments. The company ended its collaboration with OpenAI to develop its own in-house AI models. CEO Brett Adcock stated that OpenAI's general AI models are not the right fit for humanoid robotics, and that an integrated hardware/software system is needed. Competitors in the humanoid robot space include Tesla, Agility Robotics, and Apptronik. The humanoid robot market is experiencing rapid growth, with estimates ranging from $4 billion to $8.32 billion in 2026. Factors driving growth include advancements in AI, increasing demand for automation, and declining sensor costs. The market is expected to reach $39 billion by 2030. Embodied AI, which integrates AI into physical systems, is a key technology driving advancements in humanoid robots. It combines computer vision, environment modeling, and reinforcement learning to enable robots to learn and adapt to real-world environments. Applications of embodied AI range from industrial automation to self-driving cars. Figure AI's Helix system allows the robot to perform zero-shot object manipulation and full upper-body control. The robot has been tested at BMW's Spartanburg plant performing chassis assembly tasks. It stands 5'6" tall, weighs 70 kg, and can carry payloads up to 25 kg. Figure AI is expanding production manufacturing at BotQ and real-world deployments to assist with household and commercial workforce tasks. They are also building next-generation GPU infrastructure to accelerate training and simulation.