Over the next few decades, billions of autonomous, AI-powered robots will work alongside people in factories, perform tedious tasks in warehouses, care for the elderly, assist in unsafe disaster areas , deliver packages and food to our doorsteps, and eventually help out in our homes. Some will look like us, and many won’t. What is certain is that regardless of form factor, robots will all rely heavily on AI in order to deliver real-world value.
In 2025, total investments in robotics companies reached a record US $40.7 billion, accounting for 9 percent of all venture funding . The multibillion dollar question therefore is this: What will it take for AI-powered robots to begin to have a serious economic impact? Many of today’s robotics and AI companies are making bold claims, such as that humanoid robots will soon be coming into our homes , but there’s still a big gap between promise and reality.
The promise of robots that live and work alongside us has been the stuff of science fiction for a very long time. And while many programmers have tried to make that promise a reality, the physical world is just too complicated for traditional computer programs to handle the endless complexity it presents. Thanks to AI, robots are no longer being programmed—instead, they learn to operate in the real world.
With enough practice, they can learn to perceive and understand the world around them, reason about that world, and use that reason and understanding to perform tasks that are useful, reliable, and safe. The two of us have worked at the forefront of AI and robotics for the last decade, as a Professor in Robotics at Oregon State University and Co-Founder of Agility Robotics , and as former CEO of the Everyday Robots moonshot at Google X .
Our experience deploying AI-powered robot
