OpenAI CEO says company will build humanoid robots

OpenAI’s move into humanoid robotics marks a shift beyond software, aiming to build physical systems around its intelligence. The company sees potential benefits in controlling how its models act in the world and in gathering training data from physical tasks. However, the announcement is preliminary, with no product or timeline specified.

Figure’s February 2025 Helix announcement illustrates the challenges and opportunities. Figure described an architecture separating visual and language processing from motor control, and reported about 500 hours of teleoperated training data. These are Figure’s own claims, not independently verified, but they show how robot learning depends on examples of physical action.

For OpenAI, owning a robot platform could enable a similar cycle: collect observations and actions, revise models, and test on the same hardware. Yet the hiring description does not confirm a deployed fleet or proprietary data. Whether this leads to better robot performance remains uncertain, as do questions about safety, manufacturing, and timing. Direct competition with Figure and Tesla is likely, but readiness levels are unclear.