When Figure AI, a high-profile humanoid robot startup, announced a commercial agreement with automaker BMW early last year, it was a signal to venture investors and the rest of the robotics industry that the young company was one of the innovators to watch – and to beat – in this cutting edge sector.
Recent comments by Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock, along with videos produced by the company, gave the impression that a new era of robo-manufacturing was firmly at hand. But a closer look at the details of the partnership reveals a far more modest affair – at least currently – that suggests Figure’s humanoid car-building workforce may be as much hype as reality and which raises questions about the sincerity of Adcock’s comments.
Up until sometime in March, a Figure robot at BMW’s South Carolina factory operated only during off-hours, practicing picking up and placing parts in the plant’s body shop, according to a BMW spokesperson — even though Adcock boasted in February that a “fleet” of Figure’s humanoid robots were already performing “end-to-end operations” for the carmaker. More recently, that same robot work has moved into live production hours but involves a single Figure robot performing the same limited chore, the spokesperson said.
BMW declined to comment on the disparities between what Adcock had publicized in February and what the auto giant said was the reality at the time, referring those questions to Adcock. The serial entrepreneur and representatives for the company have not responded to requests for clarification or comment.
The questions come as sci-fi like humanoid robots are having a moment. While Elon Musk-directed efforts to build a humanoid called Optimus inside Tesla has played a central role in building hype for the futuristic form factor, Figure’s commercial agreement stood out as one of the first real-world deployments in the U.S. Figure has raised more than $700 million since its 2022 founding from investors including Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel Capital, and Jeff Bezos, via his investment firm. Reuters reported in February that Figure AI was attempting to raise another $1.5 billion at a valuation approaching $40 billion.
Other tech giants, from Nvidia to OpenAI, have all launched robot-focused initiatives as expectations build for a potential market opportunity that investment management firm ARK pegged in the trillions of dollars in a bullish report last fall. Agility Robotics, which inked a deal for its own humanoids to move containers inside a Spanx apparel warehouse, is reportedly raising $400 million. That comes after Austin-based Apptronik and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based 1X recently raised $350 million and $100 million in funding, respectively.
