A new report says OpenAI has disbanded its dedicated robotics team, a reflection of a change in strategy across the AI industry.
According to Fortune, which obtained the exclusive, OpenAI confirmed the disbanding of the robotics team. Interestingly, it’s not the first time the team has been shut down. The company first shut down its robotics team in 2020, only to rebuild it in 2024 when it partnered with Figure.
A company spokesperson told Fortune the company remains committed to general purpose robotics, despite the team once again being shut down and its researchers dispersed among other departments. The move stems from a shift in strategy in the industry that focuses on using general purpose AI models to control robots, rather than creating specialized models. Researchers have already experienced a surprising level of success with this approach, making a consolidation of effort worthwhile.
Guanya Shi, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, told Fortune he believes OpenAI’s reorganization means the company views robotics as “no longer a special problem.”
Shi still sees limits, however, warning that LLM-based AI’s dependence on the cloud poses a real-world limitation, as any robot powered by such an AI model must always be connected to the network. In contrast, smaller, specialized AI models can run locally on the robot itself.
OpenAI’s move still underscores just how successful and powerful LLM-based AI has become, but the entire debate shows there may be more than one approach to the problem.
“There may be different starting points for how to grow intelligence,” Pete Florence, cofounder of Generalist, told Fortune.
WebProNews is an iEntry Publication