Figure AI robots run full eight-hour shifts

Figure AI said on May 13 that its humanoid robots were operating through a full eight-hour shift without human intervention, extending a series of public demonstrations around its Helix-02 control system. The claim appeared in a social-media post from Chief Executive Brett Adcock, who said a “team of humanoid robots” was running “at human performance levels.” (digit.in) Figure has spent the past 15 months moving Helix from short manipulation demos to logistics work and full-body autonomy. (the-express.com) Company posts show that progression from package-handling demonstrations in February 2025 to the Helix-02 launch in January 2026 and home-task demos in March and May 2026. (figure.ai) The company did not publish a detailed technical report alongside the May 13 post in the sources reviewed by Reuters-style reporting here, and the X page linked in the prompt did not render directly through the browser tool. The available evidence comes from Figure’s own website and secondary reports quoting Adcock’s post. ### What exactly did Figure say happened on May 13? Brett Adcock wrote on X that viewers could “watch a team of humanoid robots running a full 8-hr shift at human performance levels” and said the run was “fully autonomous” on Helix-02. (the-express.com) Secondary reports reviewed by the browser tool quoted that post and described the task as package sorting in a warehouse-style setting. (figure.ai) May 13 was the date attached to multiple reports about the livestream, and one outlet said the robots were shown moving delivery packages to a conveyor while detecting and reorienting barcodes. Reuters-style caution is warranted here: those task details were reported by third parties, not confirmed in a Figure technical note found in the sources reviewed. (x.com) ### What is Helix-02, and how is Figure describing it? Figure described Helix-02 on January 27 as a system that extends control from the upper body to the full robot — “walking, manipulating, and balancing as one continuous system.” The company said the model takes input from onboard sensors and outputs whole-body control through a unified neural network. (the-express.com) The January post said Helix-02 was built around what Figure called “System 0,” a learned whole-body controller trained on more than 1,000 hours of human motion data and reinforcement learning. Figure also said the system replaced 109,504 lines of hand-engineered C++ with a learned controller. Figure’s earlier Helix materials framed the software as a vision-language-action model for generalist humanoid control, including multi-robot collaboration. (the-express.com) Later demos showed two robots working together on household tasks, including making a bed and tidying a room in under two minutes. ### How does this compare with Figure’s earlier public demos? February 26, 2025 marked Figure’s first public logistics push for Helix, when the company said the system was being applied to package manipulation and triaging. (figure.ai) By June 7, 2025, Figure said Helix was approaching human-level dexterity and speed in logistics and could handle a wider variety of packaging. January 27, 2026 marked the Helix-02 launch, where Figure showed a robot unloading and reloading a dishwasher in a continuous four-minute task with no resets or human intervention. (figure.ai) March and May 2026 brought living-room and bedroom cleanup demos that emphasized longer-horizon household autonomy. November 19, 2025 also gave Figure a factory reference point: the company said its Figure 02 robots had contributed to BMW production, logging 10-hour shifts Monday through Friday, 1,250-plus runtime hours and 90,000-plus parts loaded. (figure.ai) That BMW post did not describe the same Helix-02 setup now being promoted, but it showed Figure using shift-length metrics before this week’s claim. (figure.ai) ### How much hardware does Figure say it has built? Figure said on April 29 that its BotQ manufacturing facility had delivered more than 350 third-generation humanoid robots and increased output from one Figure 03 per day to one per hour in under 120 days. The company called that a 24-fold improvement in production throughput. (figure.ai) March 15, 2025 was the date Figure introduced BotQ and said its first-generation manufacturing line would be capable of producing up to 12,000 humanoids per year. Those figures come from the company and were not independently verified in the sources reviewed. September 2025 was the date Figure said it had raised more than $1 billion in Series C funding at a $39 billion post-money valuation. (figure.ai) The company said Brookfield was among the participants in a separate strategic partnership announcement. ### What should readers watch next? Figure’s news page shows a steady cadence of Helix updates, including the January 27 Helix-02 launch, the April 29 Figure 03 production post and the May 8 bedroom-tidy demo. (figure.ai) The company’s YouTube channel also lists recent Helix-02 and production videos, suggesting future evidence is likely to appear first in those public feeds. May 14 is the first full day after Adcock’s post, and the main unresolved point is whether Figure publishes a fuller technical breakdown of the eight-hour run — including uptime, intervention logs, error rates or throughput. (figure.ai) For now, the public record consists of the company’s claim, prior Helix documentation and the livestream reports cited above. (the-express.com) (figure.ai 1) (figure.ai 2)