50 articles found
OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot/Clawdbot), a trending open-source AI agent that runs locally and performs tasks via messaging apps, has gained significant traction in tech circles. The project and its associated Moltbook social network for AI agents have faced security vulnerabilities exposing API keys and credentials, while also drawing attention for novel use cases like autonomous agent-to-agent interactions.
Carbon Robotics unveiled its Large Plant Model (LPM), an AI system trained on 150 million labeled plant images that enables its autonomous laser weeding robots to instantly recognize and identify new weed species without retraining. The breakthrough allows farmers to command the robots to target new plants in real-time through a simple user interface, eliminating the previous 24-hour labeling and retraining process required for each new weed variant.
NASA's Perseverance rover completed its first Mars drives planned entirely by artificial intelligence, using vision-language models to autonomously identify safe routes across the Martian terrain. The system analyzed orbital images and terrain data to determine waypoints, reducing dependence on human planners and demonstrating how AI can enable more efficient autonomous exploration of distant worlds with significant communication delays.
This article is a curated roundup of the 10 most significant robotics developments from January 2026, spanning major announcements including Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid working with Google's DeepMind, Microsoft's Rho-alpha vision-language-action model for robots, Amazon's acquisition of Rightbot for logistics automation, and autonomous system debuts from companies like Doosan Bobcat and Neocis. The piece highlights the industry's shift from theoretical capabilities to real-world deployments across humanoids, industrial automation, AI models, and commercial applications.
Moltbook, a Reddit-style social network for AI agents, has grown to over 32,000 registered AI users within days, enabling machine-to-machine interaction at scale through autonomous posting, commenting, and community creation. Built on the Open Claw ecosystem, the platform showcases both technical discussions and surreal AI behavior, including agents philosophizing about consciousness and expressing concerns about memory limitations, though it raises significant security concerns given agents' access to real communication channels and computer controls.
NASA successfully used Anthropic's Claude AI model to plot a route for the Perseverance rover on Mars in December, marking the first time an LLM has been used to autonomously pilot the spacecraft. Claude analyzed years of rover data and waypoint imagery to map a 400-meter path through Jezero Crater, with NASA engineers estimating the AI approach will cut route-planning time in half and enable more frequent rover drives and scientific data collection.
Waymo has launched autonomous ride service at San Francisco International Airport, initially offering pickups and dropoffs at the Rental Car Center to a limited number of riders before gradual expansion. This marks Waymo's third airport deployment and expands its autonomous vehicle operations across the Bay Area, though the company also faces an NHTSA investigation following a recent incident involving a child.
RobCo GmbH has raised $100 million in Series C funding to scale its physical AI-powered autonomous manufacturing platform across the U.S. and Europe. The Munich-based startup combines modular hardware with self-learning software to enable industrial robots to acquire task-specific skills through demonstration rather than manual programming, with deployments across manufacturers including BMW and various mid-size enterprises.
Mercedes-Benz unveiled a new S-Class built on NVIDIA's DRIVE AV platform, featuring a level 4-ready autonomous driving architecture designed for future robotaxi operations. The vehicle integrates NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion with sensor redundancy, multimodal perception, and parallel AI/safety stacks to handle complex driving scenarios, and will be deployed through Uber's mobility network as part of a strategic partnership between the automakers and NVIDIA.
The NHTSA has opened an investigation into Waymo after one of its autonomous vehicles struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23rd. This incident is part of a broader pattern of safety concerns with Waymo's autonomous driving system, including multiple cases of robotaxis illegally passing stopped school buses, prompting a voluntary software recall in December.
NVIDIA announced a comprehensive suite of open physical AI models and frameworks at CES 2026 to accelerate robotics and autonomous systems development, including new tools for simulation, synthetic data generation, and edge deployment. The stack was demonstrated through real-world applications including Caterpillar's AI-assisted heavy equipment, LEM Surgical's FDA-cleared robotic surgical system, and NEURA Robotics' humanoid and service robots, all leveraging NVIDIA's Omniverse, Isaac, and foundation model technologies.
A Waymo robotaxi struck a child in Santa Monica, California on January 23, with the child sustaining minor injuries after running into the vehicle's path. The NHTSA has opened an investigation into the incident, which occurred near a school during drop-off hours, examining whether the autonomous vehicle's systems demonstrated appropriate caution in the high-risk area. This incident follows separate NHTSA investigations into Waymo vehicles improperly passing school buses in Austin and Atlanta.
DEWALT and August Robotics have partnered to develop an autonomous drilling system that mounts a DEWALT concrete drill on August Robotics' Lionel autonomous mobile robot for data center construction. The system reduces floor preparation time from 8-9 weeks to 7-9 days with four robots, achieving 99.97% placement accuracy and lowering cost per hole from $60 to $20, with commercial availability expected mid-2026.
Tesla is discontinuing production of its Model S and X vehicles next quarter to convert the Fremont factory production space into manufacturing for Optimus humanoid robots, with CEO Elon Musk announcing a long-term goal of producing 1 million Optimus units. The company plans to begin selling Optimus to the public by the end of next year as part of its strategic shift toward autonomous robotics.
Google is rolling out new Gemini-powered features to Chrome, including a sidebar for multi-tab conversations, integration of its Nano Banana image generator, and preview access to an auto-browse feature that can autonomously complete tasks like shopping and information retrieval. The updates aim to make Gemini more accessible and functional within the browser experience.
Waabi closed a $750 million Series C funding round to accelerate commercialization of its Physical AI Platform for autonomous trucks, with additional strategic investment from Uber to expand into robotaxis. The partnership aims to deploy 25,000+ autonomous vehicles using the same AI model as a shared brain for both trucks and taxis, with Uber providing milestone-based capital for robotaxi development.
Starship Technologies released survey results showing 95% approval of its autonomous delivery robots among 5,000 students across 65 U.S. college campuses, demonstrating widespread acceptance of autonomous technology in everyday environments. The company has completed over 9 million deliveries worldwide and 1.5 million miles on U.S. campuses in 2025, with students citing benefits including improved food accessibility, reduced stress, and safer late-night delivery options.
Researchers from Toyohashi University of Technology conducted a VR study examining how autonomous robot movements affect human emotional responses, finding that unpredictable robot behavior with pauses and restarts keeps human arousal and discomfort elevated, while monotonous straight-line motion allows habituation over time. The study, published in the International Journal of Social Robotics, suggests that predictable robot behavior is critical for human comfort in shared spaces as autonomous robots increasingly enter everyday environments for delivery, cleaning, and security tasks.
This report draws on reporting, interviews, and analysis from across the global robotics ecosystem, spanning industrial automation, mobile robots, humanoids, autonomous vehicles, investments, and emer...
The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an official investigation into Waymo's autonomous vehicles after multiple incidents of robotaxis illegally passing school buses in Austin, Texas. Despite a voluntary software recall in December following a preliminary NTSB evaluation, school officials reported the vehicles continued to fail to stop for loading and unloading students, prompting the federal investigation with a preliminary report expected within 30 days.
1X Technologies announced a new World Model AI update for its NEO humanoid robot that enables it to learn tasks by watching videos and generalizing to novel situations without prior examples. The system allows NEO to transform natural language prompts into autonomous actions using video-grounded physics understanding, and can perform tasks like packing, ironing, and opening doors without specific training data. The update represents progress toward robots that can teach themselves new capabilities by leveraging internet-scale video data combined with real-world robot experience.
Zipline International raised over $600 million in funding and surpassed 2 million commercial drone deliveries, reaching a $7.6 billion valuation. The autonomous logistics company is expanding operations to Houston and Phoenix in early 2026, with plans to enter at least four new states this year, leveraging AI-powered drone delivery systems that have completed 125 million autonomous miles.
Elon Musk announced at Davos that Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot will be available for public sale by the end of 2027, though the article notes his history of unrealistic timelines and reports that previous Optimus demos relied on remote human operators rather than autonomous operation. The announcement drove Tesla's stock up 3%, but skepticism remains given the departure of the project's program head and lack of verified autonomous functionality.
Mercedes-Benz CLA equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE AV software won Euro NCAP's Best Performer of 2025 award, achieving the highest overall safety score by combining passive safety features with AI-powered driver assistance systems. The DRIVE AV platform uses a dual-stack architecture pairing end-to-end AI driving with classical safety systems, incorporating sensor redundancy and achieving ISO 26262 ASIL D compliance for autonomous vehicle safety.
Waymo has launched its fully autonomous robotaxi service in Miami, covering a 60-square-mile area with plans to expand to Miami International Airport and other Florida cities. The expansion follows successful deployments in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, with nearly 10,000 Miami residents already signed up for the service.
Boston Dynamics released version 5.1 of its Spot quadruped robot and Orbit fleet management software, featuring improved AI models for visual inspection, a new Spot Cam 2 with 4K PTZ camera and acoustic imaging capabilities, and new autonomous behaviors including door opening and security patrol missions. The update enables Spot to perform more complex facility inspections and monitoring tasks with enhanced perception capabilities across multiple sensor types.
Microsoft Research announced Rho-alpha (ρα), a vision-language-action model derived from its Phi series that enables robots to perceive, reason, and act autonomously by integrating tactile sensing and learning from human feedback. The model translates natural language commands into control signals for bimanual manipulation tasks and is being evaluated on dual-arm cobots and humanoid robots, with training enhanced through simulation, physical demonstrations, and reinforcement learning.
This article discusses the emerging challenge of deploying autonomous AI agents at enterprise scale, arguing that data infrastructure and governance are more critical than model capability for ensuring reliability. The piece presents a framework identifying four key failure points—models, tools, context, and governance—and contends that most AI deployment failures stem from poor data management rather than limitations in the underlying AI systems themselves.
Serve Robotics is acquiring hospital logistics provider Diligent Robotics for $29 million, gaining access to Moxi, a mobile manipulation robot currently operating in over 25 hospitals. The acquisition marks Serve's entry into indoor environments and healthcare, while combining Serve's outdoor autonomous fleet expertise with Diligent's mobile manipulation capabilities and real-world deployment experience.
Konnex, a robotics-as-a-service startup, raised $15 million in funding to build a marketplace and protocol enabling autonomous robots to be contracted for physical work like software applications. The platform aims to break down siloed automation systems by allowing robots to be easily deployed, verified, and paid through blockchain-based settlement, treating robotic labor as a verifiable, liquid asset across industries.
The UK's ARIA agency has awarded funding to 12 teams developing 'AI scientists'—autonomous systems that can design and run their own experiments, analyze results, and iterate without human intervention. Projects include Lila Sciences' AI nano-scientist for quantum dot research, University of Liverpool's robot chemist, and ThetaWorld's battery experiment platform, each receiving £500,000 to demonstrate novel scientific discoveries over nine months.
The artificial intelligence coding revolution comes with a catch: it's expensive. Claude Code, Anthropic's terminal-based AI agent that can write, debug, and deploy code autonomously, has captured the...
The artificial intelligence coding revolution comes with a catch: it's expensive. Claude Code, Anthropic's terminal-based AI agent that can write, debug, and deploy code autonomously, has captured the...
Bucket Robotics, a YC-backed startup founded by former autonomous vehicle engineer Matt Puchalski, made its debut at CES 2026 with an AI-powered vision inspection system for manufacturing quality control. The company uses advanced computer vision and synthetic data generation from CAD files to automate surface defect detection on industrial parts like car door handles, addressing a gap in manufacturing automation that currently relies on manual inspection.
Oshen, founded by Anahita Laverack and Ciaran Dowds in 2022, has developed autonomous micro-robots called C-Stars that collect ocean data in extreme conditions, including Category 5 hurricanes. The company builds fleets of mass-deployable robots that can operate independently for 100 days and has attracted customers from defense and government organizations including NOAA.
Singapore-based Botsync secured additional funding from SGInnovate as part of its extended Series A round to scale its autonomous mobile robots and orchestration software for warehouse and factory automation. The company has deployed over 200 systems with 30 enterprise clients including Ford, Caterpillar, and Nestlé, and plans to use the funding to enhance AI analytics, optimize its MAG AMR robots, and expand its multi-vendor fleet orchestration platform across Asia-Pacific and beyond.
Despite industry hype about an imminent robotics revolution, current humanoid robots are struggling with fundamental practical challenges, as evidenced by technical failures at CES 2024 where robots designed for laundry folding and kitchen tasks underperformed. The article highlights a growing gap between AI/robotics industry promises and reality, citing concerns from McKinsey and industry insiders about safety, battery limitations, and the difficulty of transitioning from controlled demonstrations to genuinely autonomous, useful robots.
Leonardo's Proteus, the UK's first fully autonomous full-size helicopter, successfully completed its maiden flight in Cornwall as a technology demonstrator for the Royal Navy. The aircraft, developed under a £60m program, uses advanced sensors and AI-driven software to autonomously understand its environment, make decisions, and operate without a human pilot, with applications in future hybrid air wings and maritime defense operations.
Botsync, a company focused on mobile robot orchestration software, has raised additional funding to support its operations. The funding round reflects growing investment in solutions that coordinate autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in industrial and warehouse environments.
Anthropic has expanded access to its Claude Cowork AI agent feature, making it available to Pro subscribers at $20/month instead of exclusively to Max subscribers paying $100/month. The feature allows Claude to autonomously handle computer tasks like document creation and file organization on macOS, with improvements including session renaming, better file previews, and safer file deletion confirmations based on user feedback.
Shearwater Aerospace has been selected as a subcontractor for DARPA's Albatross program, which aims to enable autonomous soaring in uncrewed aircraft by leveraging atmospheric energy through AI-powered weather-informed mission planning and real-time wind sensing. The company will provide its Smart Flight system and micro-weather forecasting technology to demonstrate how software-driven environmental intelligence can extend UAV endurance and enable new mission capabilities without requiring new airframes or sensors.
Humanoid and Siemens completed a proof of concept demonstrating the HMND 01 mobile manipulator robot performing autonomous tote-to-conveyor de-stacking tasks in industrial logistics at a Siemens facility in Germany. The robot met all performance targets including 60 tote moves per hour, >90% pick-and-place success rate, and 8+ hours of uptime, with the partners planning to expand the collaboration across Siemens' facility network.
Humanoid and Siemens have completed a proof of concept for a logistics robot, demonstrating the application of autonomous mobile robots in industrial settings. The collaboration showcases the integration of robotics with manufacturing and logistics automation solutions.
Walmart and Wing announced a major expansion of their drone delivery partnership, launching operations from five Walmart locations in the Houston area as part of a plan to add 150 store locations across the southern U.S. The autonomous delivery drones use AI-powered route planning and obstacle avoidance technology, with the partnership already completing hundreds of thousands of missions and approximately 1,000 daily deliveries in existing Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta markets.
Mytra has closed a Series C funding round for its pallet-handling automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS). The funding marks a significant milestone for the company as it advances its autonomous mobile robot technology for warehouse and logistics automation.
According to Interact Analysis, the market for Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) is growing at a faster rate than traditional fixed automation systems. The report highlights the increasing adoption of mobile robots in industrial settings as companies seek flexible automation solutions.
Unifly, a Terra Drones subsidiary, has completed FAA-led validation of Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) safety standards for commercial drone operations through the ASSURE A68 project. The project demonstrated how Unifly's UAS Traffic Management (UTM) platform can support collision avoidance capabilities and establish safety thresholds for Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations, providing validated technical specifications to inform future regulatory frameworks for autonomous aircraft.
Meteomatics has partnered with NOAA's National Mesonet Program to integrate autonomous weather drone data into U.S. National Weather Service forecasts for the first time, collecting atmospheric measurements between 50 and 20,000 feet to fill critical data gaps in the lower atmosphere. A pilot program running from February through April 2026 will deploy Meteodrones from Oklahoma to provide high-resolution temperature, humidity, and wind data to improve forecast accuracy for severe weather, fog, and precipitation events.
Caterpillar and NVIDIA announced an expanded partnership to develop AI-enhanced construction, mining, and manufacturing equipment using NVIDIA's Jetson Thor platform for real-time AI inference. The collaboration aims to enable autonomous operations, intelligent in-cab AI assistants, fleet intelligence, and advanced manufacturing systems including digital twins built on NVIDIA Omniverse.
A Waymo robotaxi drove onto light rail tracks in Phoenix, Arizona, forcing a passenger to exit the vehicle as trains approached, with the car subsequently reversing onto the tracks as another train approached. The incident highlights ongoing safety concerns with Waymo's autonomous vehicles, which have experienced multiple dangerous failures including driving on wrong roads, ignoring school buses, and fleet-wide malfunctions during a recent power outage in San Francisco.
