I threw my back out on Monday (my birthday). Life has a not-so-funny way of reminding you about the ravages of time. For me, being stuck on the couch for a couple of days always serves as a reminder of how lucky I am that it’s only a couple of days. When I started at A3, every in-person interview subject told my producer, Jana, that the last time I was there, I was walking with a cane.
My back problems are nothing compared with what much of the world deals with every day. In a more just world, things would be far more accommodating to people with accessibility issues.
As we discussed in last week’s conversation with Karen Panetta, these sorts of unconscious biases need to be addressed before physical AI is embraced on a wider scale. I also often think about how — if the world were more ADA compliant — we’d have more ramps in the place of stairs, rendering the conversation of legs vs. wheels a bit more moot.
This week, we’ve got some interesting pieces focused on accessibility and mental/physical health. I’d like to tell you this was the result of some foresight on my part, but the truth is sometimes the patterns work themselves out.
First up is a new interview with Hello Robot CEO, Aaron Edsinger, about the company’s Stretch 4 home robot. I also spoke with Kayla Matheus (now of Rhoda AI), who for years has been working with social robots for people with conditions like autism and anxiety. Becca also has an interview with former ER doctor, David Crabb, who is now in the healthcare robotics space.
All that is below, plus a fascinating interview with one of Physical Intelligence’s cofounders and the official announcement of the latest live edition of the Automated Podcast.
As Aaron Edsinger discusses recent Stretch 4 deployments, my notions of the robot begin to shift. He describes a home care scenario in which a user sends the system into the kitchen via a simple smartphone interface. The beanpole robot rolls to the fridge, opens a door with a single gripper, and retrieves a drink.
Stretch 4 returns with the beverage, of course – that bit’s obvious. It’s the extra step that cements the notion, as it lifts the Yeti mug up to the human’s mouth for a sip. Maybe it’s a small piece of the process, but it suddenly has me thinking less about Stretch as a robot tasked with doing housework, and more as a kind of embodiment for those whose own bodies are seriously impaired.
“The value is providing a sense of agency for people whose body really doesn't let them have that anymore,” says Edsinger, who serves as Hello Robot’s CEO. “It's the fact that you can go and get the drink for yourself and drink it yourself because it is a deeply meaningful thing to people in this situation. It’s simple compared to other things like unloading a dishwasher. We're really focused on the use cases where there's that high value, and there's a motivation to do it, even if it's slow and doesn't work as well as it can.”
People with mobility impairments have been a key focus since the startup’s 2017 founding. Robotics disability advocate and Robots for Humanity, Henry Evans and his wife Jane sit on the company board. Henry also features heavily in footage promoting the newly announced Stretch 4.
“First off, we're talking about people with severe mobility impairments,” says Edsinger. “Often they're in a bed or they're in a chair. From there, we imagine going to a broader kind of caregiving in the home with older adults. But for this user group, feeding is a big [use case]. It's something you want to do on your own. It's personal. Basic things of hygiene are things that we've seen. Simple things like just scratching an itch, getting a drink of water. Things that if you ask your care partner 20 times a day, then by the end of the day, you don't want to ask anymore.”
I start by congratulating Kayla Matheus on her new job — I’m fairly certain listed on her LinkedIn profile when we’d first discussed setting up an interview.
She thanks me, adding, with a bit of a laugh, “I did the slightly masochistic thing of defending my PhD, immediately going to a conference and then coming back and moving across the country and starting a job the next day. But when there's a really interesting opportunity, you have to seize it. So here I am.”
A quick glance at her CV shows that Matheus has taken her own advice to heart. She had seemingly lived a couple of lives by the time she launched Moti in late 2014. The social robot won IEEE’s CES pitch off, earned $110,000 on Kickstarter, and garnered mentions in Fast Company, Inc, Engadget, and TechCrunch.
Next, it was five years spent on a doctorate in human-robot interaction (HRI) at Yale, which ran concurrently with stints at both EV charging startup Volta and Amazon’s Lab126. The latter saw her team tackling big questions about little Astro. The Yale work centered around Ommie, a robot designed to help individuals deal with severe anxiety.
That was the thesis she successfully defended in February, before officially joining up as head of HRI and UX for physical AI unicorn, Rhoda AI, the following month. Matheus notes that, while more than a decade of work in HRI gives her ample background, the new gig will present unique challenges.
“All of my previous robots are not humanoids and they are not in industrial environments,” says Matheus. “That's definitely a gap for me, or at least a jump. I will say that I have been in the mind space of looking for what are the sustainable business models for a consumer robot. I've poked at this from my own startup. I've poked at this from inside of a large tech company. I've poked at this from a research perspective. I find so much value in terms of supporting human health, happiness, and whatnot.”
U.C. Berkeley associate professor, Sergey Levine, discusses Physical Intelligence, the buzzy startup he helped cofound. The firm is making a big bet on real-world training to kickstart robotics' data flywheel. Watch on YouTube>
Martial Hebert (CMU) -The Dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science breaks down the university's advances in autonomy and offers insight into what the future holds.
Bren Pierce (Kinisi) - After finding sustained success with restaurant robotics firm, Bear, Pierce is taking on humanoids with Kinisi.
Mark your calendars, because we’ve got another live Automated coming at you next month. The past will become the present, as Automated goes to Automate. We’re recording the next episode of the Automated podcast at Automate 2026 in Chicago on Thursday, June 25. It promises to be a good one, as FieldAI founder and CEO, Ali Agha will join us on stage to discuss the company’s work in physical AI. The really nice thing about hosting a long-form podcast, however, is that you get to go a lot deeper.
Agha is someone I’ve wanted to have on the show since the first time we chatted. There’s more than enough Field stuff to fill the full 45 minutes, of course, but even a cursory glimpse at his CV reveals some truly fascinating work, from Qualcomm drones to NASA Mars helicopters. This will be the third episode of Automated recorded in front of a live audience, following GM’s Mikell Taylor at our Forum event and MIT CSAIL’s Daniela Rus in Boston a month or so back. These things are always a lot of fun, and more importantly, I will have a bunch of Automated stickers on my person.
File this one under: Hey man, save some for the rest of us. Mind Robotics, the physical AI firm from Rivian founder RJ Scaringe, just raised another $400 million. That comes two months after a $500 million Series A, putting its total raise north of $1 billion when you factor in the $115 million seed it drummed up, way back in late 2025. The press release announcing the funds is short and extremely to the point, as are Scaringe’s comments. He says, “We are excited about the technology and product roadmap we are developing at Mind, with a focus on scaled deployments. We are proud to have Kleiner Perkins and our full investor coalition behind us.” The guy can’t be wasting time on press release comments. There’s work to be done.
First of all, Automated Tire Inc., I commend the name choice. Just really, really great work. Second, congrats on coming out of stealth. Robotics are about to majorly transform how we look at car maintenance. This Boston-based firm is focused on tire changes, vehicle inspections, and wheel balancing to start. The SmartBay system requires a single human technician, and cuts the job time by around half or “as little as 30 minutes,” per the company. All the while, the system is collecting a ton of data.
“Throughout the process, SmartBay continuously collects and analyzes data, generating real-time insights and customer-facing reports while optimizing each step for efficiency,” the startup writes. “By combining automated inspection, tire handling, balancing, and data intelligence into a single seamless workflow, SmartBay reduces manual intervention, increases throughput, and delivers faster, more consistent service outcomes.”
We’ve already seen countless horror stories detailing what can happen when individuals become overly invested with chatbots. Such discussions about guardrails shouldn’t stop at the virtual, however. In a tech world increasingly invested in physical AI, we need to have a serious discussion about what safety looks like among increasingly autonomous robots. Liam digs into some research out of CMU and the University of Oxford that explores what can be done to make the world a safer place for human-robot interaction.
That shining, happy face rolling down the hospital corridor is Rovi, the patient transport robot. He’s the first product from Rovex, a Gainesville, Florida-based startup run by former ER doctor, David Crabb. Becca spoke with the CEO about the startup, its ongoing pilot programs, and the difficult job of moving around some of society’s most vulnerable individuals in a high-traffic environment. “That's why we focus so much on the look of the robot to make sure that people feel comfortable, disarmed, because people are vulnerable. They're not having a good day when they're in the hospital,” says Crabb. “If people can at least crack a tiny smile when they see Rovi rolling around the corner to help them out, then we've won.”
Here are your Robotics Raises for the week of 5/11: Config, Lunar Outpost, Darkhive, WaiV Robotics, and Linkerbot. We got lunar rovers, we got drones, we got humanoid hands, we got more drones. But most of all, we got lots and lots of money.
Like it or not, we’re going to have to have some serious conversations about how we dress our humanoids. My preference, of course, is the classic shirt/no pants combo alternately known as Porky Pigging or Donald Ducking, depending on where your IP loyalties lie. For Persona AI, on the other hand, it’s about dressing for the job you want (your humanoids to have). The rugged robotics maker has teamed with sportswear giant Under Armour to design clothes for dirty and dangerous tasks. “We chose to work with Under Armour because of their track record of innovation with these types of performance materials,” says Persona CEO Nicolaus Radford. “As we develop humanoids for intense and potentially hazardous environments, this collaboration helps us understand how advanced materials can enhance long-term reliability, thereby informing solutions to better protect workers in the field.”
I think I’ve got some idea of what the “GD” stands for. It’s like, “GD, that’s a big robot” or “GD, $650,000 is a lot of money to spend on a robot mech of uncertain stability. (“Good.” It stands for “good.”) Frankly, it was just a matter of time before Unitree scaled its robot up into a big version you can wear. The GD01 was unveiled in a short sizzle video accompanied by a high-octane guitar track, including footage of the robot punching through a wall of mason blocks. Of that last bit it warns, “Extreme testing. Do Not Attempt. Stay Safe.” The video also showcases the mech’s ability to “transform” into a bipedal walker, all while warning, “Please everyone be sure to use the robot in a Friendly and Safe manner.” Buzzkill.
Once upon a time, Tyler met Tyler. They started a company, choosing a name with one “X” for every cofounder named Tyler. That company is Flexxbotics. All of what I’ve written above is, at very least, technically true. The company delivers a low-code solution for automating and orchestrating factory equipment.
The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) is North America’s largest automation trade association representing more than 1,400 organizations involved in robotics, artificial intelligence, machine vision & imaging, motion control & motors, and related automation technologies.
