OpenAI disbands robotics team as general models start running robots

OpenAI has disbanded its stand-alone robotics team. According to the report, the company moved its robotics researchers into its main research team and reassigned its applied robotics and hardware teams to the larger Applied organization. A company spokesperson framed the change not as a retreat but as a sign of commitment to robotics.

The decision rests on an idea gaining ground across the AI industry: general-purpose models built for language, code and vision can also drive devices that act in the physical world. The article says researchers saw surprising results when they connected GPT-6 Astra to robots.

Guanya Shi, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, read the move as a signal that OpenAI sees robotics as "no longer a special problem." In his view, the company treats robotics as a downstream application of general intelligence. According to the report, OpenAI said its researchers initially assumed progress would come through models such as Sora, but later found its frontier models could be applied to robotics directly.

Still, the company is not leaving robots behind. According to the report, OpenAI is developing its own humanoid robot, with CEO Sam Altman targeting a first public demonstration in 2027. The change was recent enough that the company's booth at the CoRL conference in Austin sat empty.