Figure AI, a startup based in the US aimed at building AI-driven humanoid robots, broke his ties last week with OpenAi, with CEO Brett Adcock claiming a “big breakthrough” in robot intelligence that the partnership made unnecessary.
The split came only a few months after the two companies announced their collaboration in addition to one $ 675 million financing round That appreciated the $ 2.6 billion figure to start his figure 02 robot.
The Figure 02. Image: Figure AI
“Today I made the decision to leave our cooperation agreement with OpenAI,” Adcock tweeted. “Figure made a big breakthrough on fully end-to-end robot AI, fully built in-house”. The movement marked a grim reversal for figure, who previously intended to use the models of OpenAI for the natural language options of Figure 02 Humanoid.
In a separate post, Adcock explained that maintaining a partnership with OpenAi in the course of time to use his LLMs began to make less logical for his company.
“LLMS becomes smarter even more commoditized. For us, LLMS quickly became the smallest part of the puzzle,” Adcock written. “The AI models of the figure are completely built in-house, so that external AI partnerships are not only cumbersome, but ultimately irrelevant for our success.”
Today I made the decision to leave our cooperation agreement with OpenAi
Figure made a large breakthrough on fully end-to-end robot AI, completely built in-house
We are pleased to show you something that nobody has ever seen on a humanoid in the next 30 days
The decision was made in the midst of broader changes in the AI landscape. Openi himself was rThe Robotics team EbuildtSubmitting a trademark application stating “Humanoid Robots” – First of all a wide range of other technologies such as Virtual Reality, augmented reality, agents and wearables. It started to hire last month for his first robotics positions.
Some AI enthusiasts were quickly noticed That the relocation could simply be another consequence of the locking effect-that the most powerful AI companies in the world has already forced to lower the prices of all their SOTA models to remain competitive against open-source alternatives.
OpenAi offers one of the most expensive LLMs on the market – with Deepseek R1 with better results than OpenAI O1 while it is free, open source, uncensored and very adaptable. Figure could easily bet on an internal fundamental model to provide the line-up with electricity without dependent on the OpenAI range.
Figure has already concluded a deal with BMW production to integrate humanoid robots into automotive production and has recently concluded a partnership with an unnamed large American customer who would be the second major commercial customer.
“It gives us potential to send on large volumes – that will stimulate cost reduction and AI data collection,” Adcock Posted on LinkedIn A week ago. “We believe between the two customers that there will be a path to 100,000 robots in the coming four years.”
Figure developed a data engine that fed his ‘fed’embodied artificial intelligence“Systems, so that the robots can learn in real time and adapt through cloud and edge computing solutions. The company’s technology enabled its robots to respond to language prompts and perform tasks with language, vision and action.
“We are working on training the robot on the use of case work with high speeds and high performance,” said Adcock. “Learning the use case with AI is the only path”
OpenAI still maintains investments in other robotics companies, including the Norwegian startup 1x.
Adcock promised to reveal the fruits of the “breakthrough” of figure within 30 days, and he was not subtle with his words. He promised that the announcement would be “something that nobody ever saw on a humanoid.”
I think he learned from the best.
Published by Andrew Hayward
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