Figure is gradually prepping its humanoid robot to competently take on household chores. While the California-based company has ambitions to deploy its robot in industrial settings like factories and warehouses, it also plans to create a robot capable of functioning inside a home.
A new video (top) released by Figure on Monday shows its humanoid robot tidying up a messy — though not too messy — living room, putting away some toys, rearranging cushions, placing the remote control neatly on the coffee table, and performing some light polishing.
While not lightning fast, the autonomous bipedal bot moves at a steady pace and with natural movement, and you could well imagine it working away quietly while the home’s occupants are out or even asleep.
The robot is powered by the latest version of Figure’s proprietary vision-language-action AI, called Helix 02. It’s powerful enough that if the robot is presented with a task that it hasn’t yet been trained for, it’ll be able to learn it.
“If you could give a home robot one job, ‘tidy the living room’ would be near the top of the list,” Figure says in a post about the video. “But from a robotics perspective, this task is incredibly difficult. Unlike more structured commercial tasks, a living room changes constantly. Objects are scattered unpredictably. Furniture creates narrow navigation paths. Soft items like towels and pillows behave dynamically. Many actions require both hands, while others require freeing a hand in the middle of a task. And nearly every behavior involves moving through the room while manipulating something at the same time.”
While the video shows off some of the robot’s impressive skills, meaningful deployment of humanoid robots in the home still faces major challenges. For example, homes are highly variable and cluttered environments, so robots must be carefully trained to reliably recognize objects, navigate tight spaces, and manipulate many different items without error.
Safety and reliability are also critical, as the robot would be operating close to people (including small children), pets, and fragile objects. Cost is another consideration, with current humanoid robots expensive to build and maintain.
Figure is one of many companies vying to edge ahead in the sector, with stiff competition from Chinese companies like Unitree causing the global race for humanoid robot leadership to intensify. This year is certainly shaping up to be an exciting one in the fast-developing field of humanoid robots.
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.
Nearly a month after announcing the GPT-6.1 Sol model, OpenAI unveiled GPT-6.1 Terra today. The latest addition to the family focuses on computer use, visual reasoning, coding, and professional work, while costing 50% less through the API than GPT-5.6 Terra.
OpenAI says Terra can handle everything from filling out browser forms and working inside spreadsheets to interpreting technical drawings and editing videos. The company says it can also complete computer-based tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.