The Next Chapter of AI is Robotics
Your robot will live in the cloud
Another robotics company is reportedly in talks to raise a billion dollars. I know, the headline barely registers anymore. What actually caught my attention is how this one is approaching the problem, it’s from a completely different angel from Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI and the rest of the robotic hardware crowd. When I learned about it I wanted to share it with you, not as an investment idea, but as a clue to where our future in AI and robotics may lie.
Physical Intelligence is focused on building what you could think of as the brain behind robotics. Not the body, not the hardware, but the intelligence layer that allows a machine to learn, adapt, and execute real-world tasks. It’s a subtle shift in framing, but an important one, because it opens up a much broader opportunity set. If you’re going to place a bet, betting on the part that actually thinks has historically worked out pretty well.
Their goal is to create a general-purpose system that can be deployed across different types of robots and trained to perform physical tasks in a way that feels far more dynamic than anything we’ve seen before. Pouring a drink, folding laundry, assembling a product, navigating a new environment. The ambition is to build a system that improves with experience and carries that learning forward, much like the way modern AI models have transformed language and reasoning. If it can eventually fold a fitted sheet, I’m prepared to call it a technological breakthrough.
What makes this especially compelling is how it aligns with the direction everything else is already moving. We’ve become comfortable with the idea that our data, preferences, and workflows live in the cloud. Your digital life follows you from device to device, creating a consistent experience regardless of where you access it. Extending that concept into the physical world starts to feel like a natural next step, even if it sounds like something we would have laughed at five years ago.
Imagine having a persistent layer of intelligence that understands your preferences and can operate across different machines. The same underlying system could move between environments and tasks while maintaining continuity. It becomes less about the specific device in front of you and more about the intelligence driving it. That shift has meaningful implications for how robotics scales and how value is ultimately created. It also raises the possibility that someday your assistant will know you better than your spouse, which feels both efficient and mildly concerning.
Bloomberg is reporting that Physical Intelligence is raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation. In isolation, that might sound ambitious. In the context of what’s happening across the broader landscape, it starts to look more like a reflection of where capital is flowing. There is a clear and accelerating push toward systems that can interact with and operate within the real world, and the dollars are following that idea with very little hesitation.
You can see it everywhere. Large pools of capital are forming around physical AI. Companies are investing heavily in world models and embodied intelligence. Major players are positioning themselves around robotics platforms and real-world applications. The momentum is building in a way that feels less like a trend and more like the early stages of infrastructure being put in place.
The core idea is straightforward. The next phase of AI is moving beyond generating content and into executing tasks. Software is beginning to take on responsibilities that have traditionally required human interaction with the physical world. That transition changes the nature of what these systems are and how they’re valued, and it opens the door to a very different type of economic leverage.
If a company can establish itself as the intelligence layer that powers a wide range of robotic systems, it begins to resemble an operating system for physical activity. That position carries leverage. It allows the company to participate across multiple use cases, industries, and hardware platforms without being tied to a single form factor. Over time, that kind of positioning tends to compound in ways that are very familiar if you’ve spent any time around markets.
There are also early signals that this shift is already underway. Robotics companies are stepping into the public eye in ways that would have sounded like science fiction not long ago. Leadership teams are reshuffling, new labs are forming, and demonstrations are starting to look less like experiments and more like previews. We’re getting closer to the point where the question isn’t whether this works, but how quickly it scales.
What we’re watching unfold is the early formation of a new category. The defining companies in this space are likely to be the ones that can translate intelligence into action at scale. Physical Intelligence is making a very direct bet on that outcome, and it’s a bet that fits cleanly within the broader trajectory of where AI is heading.
If you want to talk through what this means for portfolios, where the real opportunities are, or where this could all go sideways, give me a call at 661-302-4531 or shoot me an email at Jeremiah.Bauman@LPL.com. I’m happy to walk through it with you.
Just don’t ask me to invest in the robot that folds laundry until it proves it can handle the fitted sheet. I’ve seen too many good systems break under pressure.