In a move that’s half “conscious uncoupling” and half “hold my circuit board,” Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock announced this week that his humanoid robotics firm is ditching OpenAI faster than a Roomba fleeing a staircase. The reason? A self-described “major breakthrough” in fully in-house AI – and a belief that outsourcing robot intelligence makes as much sense as outsourcing your skeleton.
The Split Heard ‘Round the Roboverse
Last year’s OpenAI-Figure partnership was the tech equivalent of a power couple: the ChatGPT maestro meets the humanoid hustler. But like most Hollywood marriages, it ended with a tweet. Adcock’s X post revealed Figure’s new mantra: “We can’t outsource AI any more than we’d outsource actuators or batteries”. Translation: “It’s not you, OpenAI – it’s your lack of robot-specific commitment.”
Industry whispers suggest two catalysts:
- The DeepSeek R1 Factor: Rumors swirl that open-source AI models (like China’s DeepSeek-R1) proved you don’t need OpenAI’s LLMs to teach robots to fetch wrenches and sass coworkers.
- OpenAI’s Robot Side Hustle: With Sam Altman’s crew filing trademarks for “user-programmable humanoids”, Figure likely decided competing with your investor is like dating your landlord – messy.
The Secret Sauce: Vertical Integration or Vertical Ambition?
Adcock’s manifesto reveals a robotics truth bomb, as reported by The Decoder: “LLMs are the smallest piece now. The real fight is high-rate control AI”. Translation: Getting a robot to chat about the weather is easy; making it sprint across a BMW factory without faceplanting into a forklift? That’s the Everest of embodied AI.
Figure’s strategy mirrors Tesla’s Optimus playbook – own the full stack:
- Hardware: 5'6", 70kg Figure 02 (now 7x faster than its 2024 ancestor)
- AI Brain: Custom models crunching real-world data from BMW factory deployments
- Ambition: Shipping 100,000 bots by 2029 – enough to replace every barista in Seattle
The 30-Day Tease: Skynet or Swiss Army Bot?
Adcock’s promise of “something no one’s ever seen on a humanoid” has speculators buzzing:
- Theory 1: Self-replicating nanobots (unlikely, but fun)
- Theory 2: A robot that finally folds laundry without turning socks into abstract art
- Theory 3: OpenAI’s GPT-6 running locally… on a toaster (just to spite them)
One thing’s clear: With $1.5B in funding and backers like Bezos and Nvidia, Figure’s betting that the future of work isn’t human – it’s humanoid.
Join the Bot Brigade!
In classic Silicon Valley style, Adcock sprinkled his breakup announcement with a jobs pitch:
Help Wanted:
- AI Training Wizards (Must love neural nets and hate sleep)
- Reinforcement Learning Cowboys (Yeehaw to robot rodeos)
- Evaluation Nerds (Because “it moved” isn’t a benchmark)
Perks include: Bragging rights when your code makes a robot do the Macarena.
The Big Picture
As OpenAI quietly rebuilds its robotics team, this split highlights a tectonic shift: AI isn’t just software anymore. The companies dominating robotics will be those merging bespoke AI with hardware tighter than a robot’s torque sensors.
So grab your popcorn (or motor oil). In 30 days, we’ll either witness a robotics revolution… or the world’s most expensive Roomba. Place your bets. 🤖