Embodied AI Unveils AIR, a Physically Safe Humanoid Robot That Learns on the Job

Embodied AI Unveils AIR, a Physically Safe Humanoid Robot That Learns on the Job

Built in just 9 months, the robot works safely alongside factory teams and is already being tested with global manufacturers.

Swiss robotics company Embodied AI today unveils AIR at Humanoid Europe 2026, a humanoid robot built to share the factory floor with people. As many as 1.9 million US manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2033, according to Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute. AIR takes on the repetitive manual tasks that change too often for conventional robots, so the people already on the line can focus on work that needs their skill.

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AIR, a physically safe humanoid robot that learns on the job, from Embodied AI

Embodied AI went from research to an industrial humanoid in 9 months, and signed contracts with major OEMs globally with just a fraction of the spending needed by other robotics companies to achieve this. AIR is now being tested with global manufacturers, and the company is starting plans for scaled production.

The market appetite is growing. Some 22% of manufacturers plan to use physical AI, such as humanoid robots, within two years, more than double today’s 9%, according to the Manufacturing Leadership Council. But Deloitte found that more than 80% of factory task hours are expected to stay human-driven. The opportunity is in helping those people, not replacing them.

Yet most humanoids today are still demonstrations, and most industrial robots are built for heavy-duty tasks, so they work behind cages, away from the people who know the job best. AIR is built to be safe and to complete the high-dexterity tasks that currently are still performed manually. It goes onto the factory floor as it is, next to the team already there.

AIR is designed with a tendon-driven architecture. Motors, gearboxes and electronics sit in its torso. Its arms are light and moved by tendons, so they carry almost no mass and give way on contact. It runs on wheels rather than legs, because factory floors are flat and wheels are more stable. Safety comes from how it is built, not from software holding it back. AIR is designed under ISO/TS 15066:2016 with CE marking planned for 2027.

To learn and guarantee factory uptime, AIR starts every job under the control of a human operator, so it is productive from its first shift. Every run is recorded, and Embodied AI’s own AI stack learns from those demonstrations until AIR can do the task itself, typically within a month. The operator then stays on hand to cover for anything it hasn’t seen before. What one robot learns, the next can use.

Embodied AI’s AI stack is already proven in paid factory deployments with its two-arm industrial cell. When a leading consumer electronics manufacturer tested five funded startups on a cable-handling task, none met its targets. Embodied AI met them all, reaching 98% reliability against a 90% goal.

“Hallucination of AI models is acceptable in the digital space because humans review, reject, or correct the output before acting on it. In robotics, however, incorrect actions have immediate and irreversible physical consequences. When AI is used to taking physical actions, errors can cause severe damage or endanger human lives. Safety and reliability are non-negotiable requirements of physical AI to enter the real world at scale. These are the principles that guided the design of AIR,” said Francesco Stella, co-founder and CEO of Embodied AI.

AIR’s arm design grew out of Stella’s PhD at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and one of Europe’s leading technical universities. Stella, 28, previously also researched at MIT CSAIL. He co-founded the company with CTO Kai Junge and COO Max Polzin, both robotics PhDs with backgrounds at Cambridge, ETH Zurich and EPFL.

The company is backed by Faber, which led its first round, along with TechShop, Look AI Ventures, Plug and Play, and Vento.

Embodied AI will unveil AIR at Humanoid Europe 2026 on November 6 at 16.00 CET.

About Embodied AI

Embodied AI is a Swiss robotics company and EPFL spin-out building robots safe enough to work beside people. Its technology combines compliant hardware, onsite learning and AI trained on real manufacturing data. It is headquartered in Lausanne with an office in Rome. www.embodiedai.ch

Notes to editors:

Sources

1. US manufacturing jobs at risk of going unfilled: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, Taking charge: Manufacturers support growth with active workforce strategies, 2024 Manufacturing Talent Study, April 2024. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/press-releases/us-manufacturing-could-need-new-employees-by-2033.html
2. Manufacturers planning to use physical AI within two years: Manufacturing Leadership Council, Shaping the AI-powered factory of the future, May 2025, as cited in Deloitte’s 2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook. https://manufacturingleadershipcouncil.com/future-of-manufacturing-project/shaping-the-ai-powered-factory-of-the-future/
3. Share of manufacturing task hours expected to remain human-driven: Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials, 2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook, November 13, 2025. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/manufacturing-industrial-products/manufacturing-industry-outlook.html
4. Cable-handling results (98% reliability against a 90% target; five funded startups tested previously): Embodied AI customer proof of concept with a leading consumer electronics manufacturer. Data provided by Embodied AI.
5. Development timeline and investment to date: Embodied AI.

Emily John, Sourcecode Communications
emily.john@sourcecodecomms.com

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