Humanoid robots have quietly crossed a threshold from lab demos to real industrial work, and the software making that leap possible is Google’s Gemini family of AI models. Instead of being teleoperated or locked into rigid scripts,

Robotic fabrication has traditionally required specialized skills, detailed digital designs, and lengthy production times. In most environments—industrial, commercial, or operational—this limits how quickly custom structures or tools can be produced.

Atlas, the humanoid robot famous for its parkour and dance routines, has recently begun demonstrating something altogether more subtle but also a lot more significant: It has learned to both walk and grab things using a single artificial intelligence model.