Inside Figure: the company building the robot, its AI and the factory

Figure is trying to supply the whole working humanoid: the physical robot, its AI and the manufacturing system that produces it. Founded and led by Brett Adcock, the company combines software development with the practical demands of machines operating in customers’ buildings.[1][9]

Its current robot generation is Figure 03. In September 2026, the company described decommissioning most of its older Figure 02 machines while retaining a small number. That transition matters when reading its results: a customer’s earlier pilot and a newer robot demonstration can involve different hardware.[3]

The hardware is designed around the intended work

Figure designs and manufactures critical modules including actuators, batteries, sensors and electronics, while suppliers provide individual parts. Figure 03 has cameras in its palms, giving the hands another view when the head’s view is blocked. For household use, the company describes softer surfaces and removable, washable coverings—practical decisions about handling and maintenance.[1]

BMW provides a customer’s account of real work

BMW’s February 2026 report describes the Figure 02 pilot at its Spartanburg plant in 2025. Over ten months, the robot supported production of more than 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles by removing and positioning sheet-metal components for welding. BMW reported more than 90,000 components handled in around 1,250 operating hours. Those figures describe a defined production task, rather than a robot assembling whole cars.[4]

BMW also described the integration work: production IT, occupational safety, process management and shop-floor logistics were involved early, and standard interfaces connected the robot to BMW’s systems. The body shop was an experienced automation environment. That detail helps explain the route to a useful deployment: the customer’s processes and people are part of making the machine productive.[4]

In June 2026, Figure showed Figure 03 doing a different job in Spartanburg’s Hall 52: sequencing parts and moving a cart. It presented this as the newer robot’s first manufacturing demonstration. The earlier pilot totals do not become the performance figures for that new task.[5]

There is also a distribution-centre route into the business. Figure’s May agreement with Catalyst Brands identified its Reno, Nevada, facility as the initial location. Figure highlighted Brookfield as an investor in both companies.[6]

Manufacturing numbers need their destination attached

By 29 April 2026, Figure said BotQ had delivered more than 350 Figure 03 robots and demonstrated a production cycle of one robot per hour. Its allocation list included internal research, data collection, household-work development and commercial use-case development. The output figure therefore describes robots produced, not 350 machines sold to outside customers.[2]

The same update describes field-service software that tracks failures and sends findings back to engineers for hardware revisions, alongside fleet-health monitoring and software updates. This gives manufacturing and service a shared purpose: the next machine and the next software release can incorporate what previous machines encountered in use.[2]

The AI programme has its own supply chain

Index, introduced in August 2026, pays contributors for recordings of physical tasks. Figure reported $15 million paid to contributors and described filtering, deduplication and other processing before footage becomes training data. Its accompanying service platform currently connects customers with human contributors; a future robot service is part of the stated direction. Downloading that app should not be confused with ordering a delivered household robot.[7]

Figure’s September Helix 2.5 report provides a bounded test of what the data contributes. In company-run evaluations covering tidying, towel folding and bed-making in 30 previously unseen homes, it reported whole-task success of 56% with Index pretraining versus 9% without it. Architecture, task-specific training and evaluation were held fixed. The tasks had still been trained elsewhere; the evaluation homes and objects were excluded. This is evidence about transfer across those tasks, with substantial failures still present.[8]

Capital is funding several development programmes together

Figure’s September 2025 Series C announcement reported more than $1 billion in committed capital at a $39 billion post-money valuation. Those are dated fundraising terms, not annual sales or a current stock-market price. The money was intended to support its humanoid programme across AI, manufacturing, hardware and deployment.[10]

Computing adds another large commitment. In September 2026, Figure announced an initial $3.5 billion compute agreement with Nscale, with deployment targeted to begin in the second half of 2027. Nscale was also making an investment in Figure. The agreement supports the planned training programme; its future capacity should be distinguished from computing already operating.[9]

The commercial proposition is to make those programmes work as one: a customer gets a robot whose body, behaviour and support can develop together. Figure’s disclosed progress is easiest to understand by following each part separately—customer tasks, manufactured robots, AI evaluations and committed resources—and then asking how they improve the work the customer receives.

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