Meet The Next Wave of Humanoid Robots

Humanoid robots are leveling up fast, and three recent models released this week show just how far we’ve come.

Figure AI’s Figure 03 stands 5’6” and pairs Helix AI with dual palm cameras, fingertip sensors sensitive to simply three grams, and a 60% wider visual field. It folds laundry, sorts parts, and handles fragile items with near-human precision. Actuators hit human pick-and-place speeds, wireless foot charging keeps it running, and upgraded speakers and mics make conversations feel natural. Built for scale with die-casting and injection molding at BotQ, Figure 03 targets 12,000 units a yr, though consumer deployment stays pending.

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas just got a dexterity upgrade. Its three-fingered gripper has seven degrees of freedom, an articulated thumb, tactile fingertips, and palm cameras. Paired with Toyota’s Large Behavior Model, Atlas can sort, lift, and organize objects while adapting its grip on the fly. Mobility plus fantastic manipulation makes it a serious contender for industrial and domestic work, even when it’s still slower than humans.

China’s DR02 brings resilience to extreme environments. IP66-certified, it runs from -20°C to 55°C, lifts 10 kg per arm (20 kg total), and climbs stairs or 20° slopes at 1.5 m/s. A 275 TOPS processor and modular limbs mean it’s reliable, low-maintenance, and prepared for hazardous industrial sites.

From folding laundry to braving extreme outdoor conditions, these humanoid robots aren’t any longer just ideas. They’re moving, sensing, and adapting in the true world. Read more.

OpenAI’s invite-only AI video app Sora has stormed Apple’s App Store, hitting over 1 million downloads in under five days, outpacing ChatGPT’s 2023 debut. The iOS-exclusive app generates short videos from text prompts, though rapid adoption has triggered copyright complaints from media groups, prompting OpenAI to present rights holders more control and refine content policies.

Behind the buyer buzz, OpenAI is massively scaling infrastructure through its $500 billion Stargate program, securing over 26 gigawatts of AI compute via partnerships with Nvidia, AMD, Oracle, and SoftBank. AMD is offering OpenAI as much as 10% equity for co-designing next-gen GPUs, while Nvidia’s $100 billion investment effectively makes it a stakeholder in OpenAI. Sam Altman confirmed more deals are on the horizon, noting next-gen models could demand $60 billion per gigawatt of compute. OpenAI also expanded its ChatGPT Go subscription plan to sixteen Asian markets, offering higher message and image limits and localized pricing.

Meanwhile, GPT-5 Pro set recent ARC-AGI records. 70.2% on ARC-AGI-1 and 18.3% on ARC-AGI-2, averaging $4.78 per task. Despite this momentum, Google’s TPU infrastructure and early GPU investments give it a value and scale advantage. OpenAI’s reliance on third-party infrastructure raises long-term sustainability questions, at the same time as its products push the envelope on adoption, consumer engagement, and AI capability. And the legal stakes rise. ChatGPT logs and AI-generated art at the moment are evidence in California’s 2025 Palisades Fire case, underscoring AI’s impact on real-world accountability. Read more.

Google is doubling down on AI across design, development, and reasoning. Its design platform Stitch is testing three recent modes: Annotate, which applies contextual UI edits via the Gemini-powered Nano-Banana model; Theme, giving full control over colours, typography, and components; and Interactive, enabling low-code UX prototyping with click, input, and describe prompts. These upgrades push Stitch toward an AI-native Figma alternative, especially for teams already in Google Cloud.

Prompted Variants takes Google’s design AI up a notch. Designers can now tweak UIs with prompts like “make checkout easier” or “show me different layouts,” or skip the prompt and let Stitch rethink the screen entirely. In early demos, full makeovers occur in minutes.

Developers get smarter workflows with Gemini CLI extensions. They now integrate AI reasoning and automation with popular tools like Figma, Stripe, Shopify, Postman, and Snyk. Partner launch extensions add observability, CI/CD automation, and security scanning. Prebuilt playbooks teach the AI methods to use APIs, letting over 1,000,000 developers construct context-aware, self-updating toolchains.

Gemini 2.5 Deep Think also set recent benchmarks in FrontierMath, excelling in geometric reasoning while still hitting limits in numeric precision. Google and the University of Illinois also introduced ReasoningBank, giving LLMs structured “memories” of past reasoning. Paired with Memory-aware Test-Time Scaling, agents can explore multiple reasoning paths, boosting performance as much as 8.3 points while cutting unnecessary compute.

Consumer AI is expanding too. Virtual try-on now includes shoes in Australia, Canada, and Japan, and AI-powered Search Mode is live in 40+ European countries, delivering context-aware, conversational results. From design to coding to reasoning, Google is shaping a totally integrated, self-improving AI ecosystem. Read more.