Boston Dynamics and Google DeepMind Want Robots to Have Brains

It is officially 2026 in Las Vegas and the biggest news from CES is not a bigger television or a faster car. It is a partnership that sounds like the start of a sci fi movie. Boston Dynamics has teamed up with Google DeepMind to put advanced AI inside humanoid robots.

The goal is simple. Boston Dynamics builds the body and Google DeepMind provides the brain. Specifically, they plan to merge the physical skills of the Atlas robot with the Gemini Robotics AI models.

For years Boston Dynamics amazed the internet with videos of robots doing parkour and dancing better than most humans. Those tricks were impressive, but backflips do not pay the bills. The company realized that for robots to be useful in places like car factories, they need to do more than jump. They need to think.

This is where Google DeepMind enters the picture. Their Gemini Robotics models are built to help machines understand what they see and how to interact with objects. The idea is to create robots that can perceive their surroundings and reason through tasks.

Alberto Rodriguez, the Director of Robot Behavior for Atlas at Boston Dynamics, explained why they chose this specific partner.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with the Google DeepMind team,” Rodriguez said. “We are building the world’s most capable humanoid, and we knew we needed a partner that could help us establish new kinds of visual-language-action models for these complex robots. Nobody in the world is better suited than DeepMind to build reliable, scalable models that can be deployed safely and efficiently across a wide variety of tasks and industries.”

The collaboration will start with research at both companies later this year. They want to prove that humanoids can handle boring industrial work safely. If they succeed, the automotive industry will be the first to see these smart machines on the factory line.

Carolina Parada, Senior Director of Robotics at Google DeepMind, emphasized that their software is ready for the physical world.

“We developed our Gemini Robotics models to bring AI into the physical world,” Parada said. “We are excited to begin working with the Boston Dynamics team to explore what’s possible with their new Atlas robot as we develop new models to expand the impact of robotics, and to scale robots safely and efficiently.”

Hyundai Motor Group owns a majority stake in Boston Dynamics and hosted the announcement. While the timeline for seeing an Atlas robot fix your car is still unclear, one thing is certain. The robots are getting smarter, and they are coming to work.

Featured image generated using gemini