OpenAI folds robotics team into main research and applied orgs

OpenAI has dissolved its stand-alone robotics team for the second time in six years. The research staff now reports to Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, and the applied robotics and hardware staff report to President Greg Brockman, Fortune reported.

The first robotics effort was wound down in 2020, with cofounder Wojciech Zaremba citing "limited robot data" at the time. OpenAI rebuilt a stand-alone team in 2024 and partnered with humanoid startup Figure. That partnership ended in February 2025.

The reason for the reorganization this time is different. Researchers believe general models like GPT-6 Astra can control robots directly, without a dedicated stack. Astra reportedly achieved "74.8% success rate on a simulated manipulation benchmark" against 51.0% for specialized robotics models.

A company spokesperson said robotics "remains a core part of OpenAI's long-term vision" and framed the move as acceleration rather than retreat. CEO Sam Altman is targeting a first public demonstration of the company's own humanoid robot in 2027.

Outside the company, the read is mixed. Guanya Shi, of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, told Fortune the move suggests OpenAI sees robotics as "no longer a special problem." MIT's Russ Tedrake, who runs Walden Robotics, argued robotics startups still hold the advantage of real-world deployment experience. Generalist cofounder Pete Florence said it is "unclear that any existing model would dominate robotics."

One detail from the week, among a dense run of robotics stories on our tracker: at the CoRL robotics conference in Austin, OpenAI's booth sat empty despite being registered.