Embodied AI retweeted
Meet AIR, Embodied AI’s new wheeled humanoid built for factory work.
Its tendon-driven architecture keeps the motors, gearboxes and electronics in the torso, leaving the arms lightweight and compliant.
It starts under human control, learns from demonstrations, then progressively gains autonomy.
A practical approach to physical AI.
Embodied AI retweeted
This factory robot learns on the job.🤖
Embodied AI's AIR is built for changing manufacturing tasks, with lightweight tendon-driven arms.
Human operators guide it as it learns.
This is not a fully autonomous deployment.
Credit: Embodied AI (@EmbodiedAI_ch)
Embodied AI retweeted
Europe is slowly making its way into the humanoid robotics race.
Here is another European company worth watching.
Meet AIR, developed by Swiss startup Embodied AI, based in Lausanne.
AIR takes a different approach to factory automation:
- Wheeled mobility instead of bipedal legs.
- Tendon-driven arms with lightweight mechanical structures.
- Motors, gearboxes and electronics housed inside the torso.
- AI that learns tasks by watching human operators.
According to the company, AIR can typically learn a new task within one month.
The robot is already being tested with global manufacturers. Embodied AI says it developed AIR in just 9 months.
There is also an interesting detail behind the company: AIR's arm architecture grew out of research conducted at EPFL.
Europe has research labs, engineering talent and startups working on real industrial robotics.
AIR is another example of that progress.
The humanoid robotics industry is moving into a new phase.
Several developments today
• Agility Robotics is entering the Nasdaq under the ticker AGLT, with more than $300M in announced multi-year Digit 5 orders subject to contractual conditions.
• A research team demonstrated HALO on the Unitree G1 reporting 91% success across 360 real-world trials.
• Carnegie Mellon introduced Pixel, a low-cost mobile robot with two arms, priced below $15,000.
• AgiBot announced GO-3 Preview, with plans to open-source it before the end of 2026.
• NYU presented MABEL, an open-source mobile manipulation platform with 56 degrees of freedom and a listed component cost of $8,056.
• NEURA Robotics is working with E.ON and enviaM on robotics applications for electrical infrastructure.
public markets real-world robot learning affordable research platforms and industrial deployment are all moving forward at the same time.
Humanoid robotics is developing on several fronts at once.
Which of these developments do you think will have the biggest impact?
Embodied AI retweeted
Swiss startup Embodied AI has unveiled AIR, a wheeled robot with a torso and two arms, built to work next to factory staff without a safety cage.
The heavy motors sit in the torso, and the arms are driven by cables, so they stay light. According to an investor, each arm weighs 2 kg and lifts 5 kg. The arms are also designed to give way when they bump into something.
A remote operator runs AIR from its first shift. The company says the robot learns the task from those shifts and takes over on its own within about a month. It reports a 95% average success rate in paid pilots with a consumer electronics maker and an automotive supplier, though it hasn’t named either.
The 25-person EPFL spin-off from Lausanne is presenting AIR at Humanoid Europe in Munich today. CE marking is planned for 2027, and orders open after the show. No price yet.
Embodied AI retweeted
🚨 BREAKING:
Meet AIR, a dual-arm humanoid built by @EmbodiedAI_ch for factory floors.
The company is an EPFL spin-off, headquartered in Lausanne, opening an office in Rome.
Founded by Francesco Stella, Kai Junge and Max Polzin, PhDs from EPFL, with backgrounds from MIT, ETH and Cambridge.
The company is part of Google DeepMind accelerator and NVIDIA Inception member.
The design choices tell you everything about their philosophy. Just have a look!
No legs. An omnidirectional wheeled base instead. A 100kg biped losing balance next to an operator is a safety incident. Factory floors are flat, legs don't buy you anything there.
Mass in the torso, not the arms. Light, tendon-driven arms mean no cage, and no fence required. The robot can stand next to a person on a production line.
AIR drops into a workstation that already exists, so there's no need for line rebuild (less investment into infra).
The deployment model is equally smart:
→ Productive from the first shift under remote operation
→ Learns the task from the work it performs
→ Becomes autonomous within months, teleoperation as fallback only
Built for high-mix industrial work, kitting, assembly, cabling, machine tending. The tasks that defeat rigid single-purpose automation.
Embodied AI is optimising for the constraint that actually decides whether a robot gets deployed: can it safely stand next to a human on a real factory floor?
Europe building its own industrial robot workforce! 🇪🇺
VERY INTERESTING.
Great to be onboard as one of the early investors! 🦾
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