Figure AI Dumps OpenAI Deal After ‘Major Breakthrough’ in Robot Intelligence

Determine AI, a U.S.-based startup targeted on constructing AI-powered humanoid robots, severed its ties with OpenAI final week, with CEO Brett Adcock claiming a “main breakthrough” in robotic intelligence that made the partnership pointless.

The cut up got here simply months after the 2 corporations introduced their collaboration alongside a $675 million funding spherical that valued Determine at $2.6 billion to kick-start its Determine 02 robotic.

“At this time, I made the choice to depart our Collaboration Settlement with OpenAI,” Adcock tweeted. “Determine made a significant breakthrough on totally end-to-end robotic AI, constructed solely in-house”. The transfer marked a stark reversal for Determine, which beforehand deliberate to make use of OpenAI’s fashions for its Determine 02 humanoid’s pure language capabilities.

In a separate submit, Adcock defined that, over time, sustaining a partnership with OpenAI to make use of its LLMs began to make much less sense for his firm.

“LLMs are getting smarter but extra commoditized. For us, LLMs have rapidly change into the smallest piece of the puzzle,” Adcock wrote. “Determine’s AI fashions are constructed solely in-house, making exterior AI partnerships not simply cumbersome however in the end irrelevant to our success.”

The choice got here amid broader modifications within the AI panorama. OpenAI itself had been rebuilding its robotics workforce, submitting a trademark utility mentioning “humanoid robots”—alongside a big selection of different applied sciences like digital actuality, augmented actuality, brokers, and wearables. It started hiring for its first robotics positions final month.

Some AI lovers have been fast to notice that the transfer may simply be one other consequence of the DeepSeek impact—which has already compelled essentially the most highly effective AI corporations on the planet to decrease the costs of all their SOTA fashions to stay aggressive in opposition to open-source alternate options.

OpenAI offers probably the most costly LLMs out there—with DeepSeek R1 offering higher outcomes than OpenAI o1 whereas being obtainable free, open supply, uncensored, and extremely customizable. Determine may merely be betting on an in-house foundational mannequin to energy its lineup with out relying on OpenAI’s choices.

Determine has already secured a cope with BMW Manufacturing to combine humanoid robots into automotive manufacturing, and lately struck a partnership with an unnamed main U.S. consumer that might be its second large industrial consumer.

“It provides us potential to ship at excessive volumes—which can drive price discount and AI information assortment,” Adcock posted on LinkedIn per week in the past. “Between each prospects, we consider there’s a path to 100,000 robots over the subsequent 4 years.”

Determine developed a knowledge engine that powered its “embodied synthetic intelligence” techniques, enabling its robots to study and adapt in actual time by way of cloud and edge computing options. The corporate’s expertise allowed its robots to answer language prompts and carry out duties that included language, imaginative and prescient, and motion.

“We’re engaged on coaching the robotic on how one can do use case work at excessive speeds and excessive efficiency” Adcock stated. “Studying the use case with AI is the one path”

OpenAI nonetheless maintains investments in different robotics ventures, together with Norwegian startup 1X.

Adcock promised to disclose the fruits of Determine’s “breakthrough” inside 30 days, and he wasn’t refined together with his phrases. He promised the announcement can be “one thing nobody has ever seen on a humanoid.”

Guess he discovered from one of the best.

Edited by Andrew Hayward