What Is Figure AI?
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Figure AI is a Santa Clara-based robotics company founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, previously co-founder of Archer Aviation. The company has raised $675 million in funding from a consortium that includes Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos, reflecting the extraordinary investor appetite for general-purpose humanoid robots designed for commercial labour markets.
Figure's stated mission is to deploy humanoid robots into the workforce to perform dangerous, dirty, and repetitive jobs. Unlike research-focused competitors, Figure moved directly toward commercial deployment — signing a production partnership with BMW before Figure 02 was publicly announced.
Figure 01 Specifications
- Height: 5'6" (168 cm)
- Weight: 60 kg
- Payload: 20 kg
- Notable capability: First humanoid robot to integrate with OpenAI's language models for natural language task understanding and verbal interaction
- Status: Development and pilot phase; succeeded by Figure 02
Figure 01 demonstrated the viability of general-purpose humanoid task execution and established the OpenAI collaboration that became a key differentiator for the platform.
Figure 02 Specifications
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Figure 02 was released in 2024 as a substantial upgrade over Figure 01, with meaningfully improved hands, endurance, and real-world deployment capability.
- Hands: 16 degrees of freedom (ahead of Tesla Optimus at 11 DoF and most competitors at 11–12 DoF)
- Walking speed: 1.2 m/s
- Battery: Full-shift operation
- Deployment: Active in BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing plant
- Tasks: Automotive parts handling, sheet metal transfer, quality inspection
- Status: Commercial deployment — the first confirmed humanoid robot in active automotive production
The BMW Spartanburg deployment is the most significant commercial humanoid robot contract announced to date. Figure 02 is performing tasks previously handled by human workers on live production lines, not in a pilot zone.
Figure 02 Specs & BMW Deployment
Get the details on Figure 02's improvements and BMW deployment.
Price & Commercial Availability
Figure has not disclosed unit pricing. The company operates on enterprise contracts only and does not sell direct to consumers or SMEs. Based on comparable humanoid robot platforms and industry analyst estimates, per-unit pricing is estimated at $150,000–$200,000, consistent with early-stage commercial humanoid deployments. Figure's long-term roadmap targets cost reduction through volume production, but no public price trajectory has been confirmed.
Figure 02 vs Tesla Optimus
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Figure 02 holds a clear lead in confirmed commercial deployment — BMW's Spartanburg plant is a live production environment, while Tesla Optimus remains in internal factory testing with no third-party commercial contracts announced as of 2026. However, Tesla's manufacturing scale gives Optimus a structural cost advantage: Elon Musk's stated sub-$20,000 long-term price target is plausible in a way that enterprise-contract pricing is not. Figure 02's 16-DoF hands outperform Optimus Gen 2's 11-DoF hands on dexterous manipulation benchmarks, but Tesla's vertically integrated FSD compute stack may give Optimus an AI perception edge as task complexity increases.
Figure 02 vs. Tesla Optimus Comparison
See how Figure 02 stacks up against Tesla's Optimus robot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Figure robot? Figure is a line of general-purpose humanoid robots built by Figure AI, a US robotics company founded in 2022. The current commercial model is Figure 02, which is actively deployed in BMW's Spartanburg automotive plant for parts handling and quality inspection tasks.
How much does the Figure robot cost? Figure has not published pricing. The company sells through enterprise contracts only. Industry estimates place per-unit cost at $150,000–$200,000 based on comparable humanoid platforms. No consumer pricing has been announced.
Where are Figure robots deployed? Figure 02 is deployed at BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing facility — currently the highest-profile confirmed commercial humanoid robot deployment in the automotive industry.
Browse all humanoid robots on Geppetto: https://geppettorobotdirectory.com/categories/humanoid
