In 2018, a simulated humanoid learned to do a backflip by watching a motion capture clip. In 2025, the same lineage of research produced a single model that controls a real Unitree G1 robot with zero task-specific training. The path from one to the other redefines what ’learning to move’ means for robots, virtual humans, and the film industry.
In 2025, three exoskeletons got FDA clearance and a national insurance policy went live. Stroke patients reported 25% better quality of life. And a rental model launched at €150 per day. The evidence is real. The access is not.
Cathie Wood sees a golden age. Ray Dalio sees a bubble. BlackRock is quietly tokenizing everything. Meanwhile, robots just started clocking in at BMW. Three industries are merging into one economic stack, and no one agrees on what happens next. This is an attempt to make sense of it.
In a Google DeepMind lab, a robot arm folds paper into a fox shape from fewer than 100 demonstrations. At ICLR 2026, 164 papers compete to define robot intelligence. From RT-1 to BitVLA, the science behind Physical AI is moving faster than the machines themselves.
Jensen Huang calls it the ChatGPT moment for robotics. Boston Dynamics just started shipping Atlas to Hyundai. A Chinese startup sells humanoid robots for less than a used Honda Civic. Physical AI, the idea that machines can perceive, reason about, and act in the real world, went from conference slide to factory floor in under two years. Here is what that actually means.
Anthropic’s CEO just published a 23,000-word constitution for Claude. Not code. A constitution. Because the most advanced AI systems are no longer programmed—they are raised. And the methods look more like parenting than engineering.
Humanoid robots work for 40 cents an hour. Exoskeletons cost $5,000 and save $7,000 per worker per year. One replaces humans. The other makes them stronger. Both are growing at 30%+ annually. They are not competing. They are carving up different pieces of the same problem.
A Toyota factory went three years without a single shoulder injury. Ford cut medical visits by 52%. A warehouse paid $1,500 per exoskeleton and earned back $7,000 per worker per year. The ROI is real, measurable, and increasingly hard to ignore.
Medical exoskeletons cost $70,000. Industrial ones run $50,000. But in 2025, you could walk into a store—or click a website—and buy a powered exoskeleton for less than a high-end laptop. Seven brands are competing. Two are winning. This is what the specs actually show.
Behavior Foundation Models can make virtual characters backflip and real humanoids walk. But making them help a stroke patient climb stairs requires solving problems the robotics community has barely started to name. Here is where the technology actually stands, what is missing, and which research directions might close the gap.