A Robot Company Just Proved humanoid robot hype is real in 2024
Is this the "ChatGPT" moment for General purpose robots?
February 29th, 2024.
Hey Everyone,
So that rumor we talked about previously has today come to fruition. And we have to appreciate the funding round size of this compared to anything previously.
Announcing: Figure raises $675M at $2.6B valuation
In addition, OpenAI & Figure signed a collaboration agreement to develop next generation AI model.
Figure might be a likely candidate for OpenAI to acquire one day, if this keeps up. The quality of the investors also says a lot about the trust in the founder.
The startup says it will use the money to accelerate development of its humanoid robot, which is intended for commercial use.
Pretty much what we expected:
Investments from: -
Microsoft
OpenAI Startup Fund (this is basically Sam Altman)
NVIDIA
Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions)
Parkway Venture Capital
Intel Capital
Align Ventures
Collaboration with OpenAI is Notable
They also signed a collaboration agreement with OpenAI to develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots The collaboration aims to help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.
Did you read that? The robots capable of processing and reasoning in the future!
This like the OpenAI of robotics because such a big funding round has not occured. Definitely not at least as mere Series B. This means Figure is best positioned to benefit from recent advances in LLMs and incorporate first advances from GPT-5 that is the next anticipated model.
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Performing Dangerous Tasks?
Not so scare humans or their jobs, the robot is being said to be piloted to do dangerous jobs. Figure AI, a startup working to build humanoid robots that can perform dangerous and undesirable jobs, just got a big vote of confidence from some of the largest names in artificial intelligence.
dangerous jobs
undesirable jobs
This wording appears very deliberate like written by Sam Altman.
Founder Brett Adcock, a serial entrepreneur, bootstrapped the company, putting in an initial $100 million to get it started. Last May, it added $70 million in the form of a Series A. So this is a big step up for the small team of 80 or so employees at present, expect this number to grow fast.
Figure > Tesla. In 2024, we’ll give the edge to Figure in that case.
When Figure launched in 2022, it put out an ambitious goal of creating a walking bipedal robot within a year. Figure has made fast strives coming almost out of nowhere in 2023.
Amazon Robotics News
Also this week there was something very interesting out of Amazon. Amazon VC Fund Expands Focus to AI, Robotics, Last Mile.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Amazon’s Franziska Bossart said the company’s billion-dollar industrial innovation fund will accelerate investments in startups combining AI and robotics. This PR blitz seems to coincide with the Figure Raise, which is perhaps Amazon’s way of saying they want to be relevant in robotics. Amazon has been doing a bunch of pilots in warehouses and with robots in recent years.
Intersection of Robotics and Generative AI is a Hot Space
Recent experiments combining generative AI and robots have already begun to yield some interesting results. Even Nvidia is involved here.
Amazon plans to direct significant funds into AI and robotics startups is notable and important in this context. Even as Meta, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI are keenly aware of the implications of Generative AI and Robotics research combining in novel and innovative ways.
Of course Amazon is also very interested in robotics in logistics. Bossart said the Industrial Innovation Fund’s expanded focus will also include investments in companies involved in the final mile of deliveries, geographic expansion and late-stage companies, per the report.
According to CNBC, Founded in 2022, Figure AI has developed a general-purpose robot, called Figure 01, that looks and moves like a human. The company sees its robots being put to use in manufacturing, shipping and logistics, warehousing, and retail, “where labor shortages are the most severe,” though its machines aren’t intended for military or defense applications.
This momentum for robotics research, funding for robotics startups is really like what we saw in Quantum computing a few years ago, like a sharp uptick in real interest that this is going to become potentially big.
BigTech is taking robotics more seriously in practice as well and at car makers too. Amazon recently began a small pilot with Agility’s Digit robot, which seems to have found its groove supplementing human labor in brownfield warehouses and fulfillment centers.
Figure’s Direction with Series B Funds
This investment will ramp up Figure’s timeline for humanoid commercial deployment and will be used for:
AI training
Manufacturing
Deploying more robots
Expanding engineering headcount
Advancing commercial deployment efforts
Bossart said that the focus of Amazon’s automation efforts is on shifting repetitive and dangerous tasks to robots and automated vehicles, rather than eliminating human roles entirely, according to the report. So they are all using the same phrases. To make it seem like these robots won’t take human jobs.
Full Autonomy in a Decade?
Just like self-driving cars and other projects in automation there always seems to be an upper limit to what is possible still. Figure’s ultimate aim is for Figure 01 to be able to perform “everyday tasks autonomously.”
Whether that takes 5, 10, 15 or more years is not clear.
Meanwhile, Figure is part of a crowded field of companies vying to make humanoid robots a reality. Which is the reason I started this Newsletter.
“General purpose” gets tossed around a lot when discussing these robots. In essence, it refers to systems that can quickly pick up a variety of tasks the way humans do.
$38 Billion by 2035
The market is nascent. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the humanoid robot market to reach $38 billion by 2035, and project that more than 250,000 units could be shipped in 2030.
Most people believe that warehouse work is the first step to broader adoption and is perhaps the eventual arrival of a home robot. But new use cases are likely to be found as good training jobs and internships for the robots. Not to mention PR stunts.
Figure leaning into Azure and OpenAI is also very evident in the PR. As part of the deal announced Thursday, Figure said it’s partnering with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to “develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots.” It will also use Microsoft’s Azure cloud services for AI infrastructure, training and storage, Figure said.
Brett Adcock insists Figure has hands-down the best AI/Robotics team in the world. I wouldn’t count China out in this though. The U.S. is considering crazy high tariffs on Chinese EVs, basically because the U.S. cannot even compete with Chinese EV makers, it’s a disgrace of the global free market system. I expect the U.S. to keep losing major tech wars from biotech, to robotics, to space-tech in the decades ahead.
Costs Need to Come Down
Just like AI chips and compute making LLMs more affordable the costs or robots will have to dramatically be reduced somehow. This might take time and years and a company actually reaching commercial success and scale. Not to mention formering their own software hive mind to learn faster, if you will.
Humanoid robots require expensive components such as actuators, motors and sensors to function. Goldman researchers say those costs are expected to come down in the coming years, noting they’ve already dropped to between $30,000 and $150,000 per unit, from a range of $50,000 to $250,000 per unit last year.
The near-term application for Large Language Models will be the ability to create more natural methods of communication between robot and their human colleagues. There’s also of exciting research along these lines by both BigTech and China. So human robotic interactions will be an emerging space relatively soon.
Where Should I put the crate Sir?
Picture: Amazon-backed Agility Robotics plans to open a factory that can produce up to 10,000 of its bipedal Digit robots per year.
Anyways I find the Amazon and Figure news both really big of course for the near-term future of robotics innovation.
Affordability will be key, as will understanding which labour shortage areas represent most potential for volume sales beyond dangerous/undesirable tasks. Expensive animatronic faces should fall by the wayside. We hear much about warehousing variants as a starting point but what next?. GPR house robots are all well and good, and may be financially viable even if marketed as little more than rich persons' novelty tech. Health and social "senior care" robot initiatives have promised much, and so far delivered very little. As our population demographic ages at a worrying rate, with no corresponding adequate increase in nursing and care staff, there will be real demand for care & companion robots which are context-aware with care-specific training and the dexterity and strength to assist elderly care. Whilst they will need to be more than just a GPR, or a disappointing Alice or Moxi, potential volumes could make an affordable care & companion specification more than just niche, and just maybe financially viable.