OpenAI has dissolved its dedicated robotics group and redistributed its staff across the company, according to a November 13 report by Fortune that included confirmation from an OpenAI spokesperson. The company says the organizational change is intended to accelerate its robotics development rather than end the program.
The robotics researchers will work within the central research organization led by Chief Research Officer Mark Chen. Hardware development and applied robotics will sit within the Applied division overseen by OpenAI President Greg Brockman.
The restructuring follows a change in the company’s approach to robot intelligence. OpenAI has found that its existing frontier models, including GPT-6 Astra, can be adapted to robotic tasks, reducing the need to maintain a separate research organization dedicated to developing robot-specific intelligence.
The distinction between research and hardware development is important. General-purpose AI models can provide reasoning and task planning, while physical robots still require control systems, sensors, actuators and integration with their operating environments. Moving robotics research into a broader AI organization does not itself establish that these engineering challenges have been solved.
OpenAI previously worked with humanoid developer Figure before that collaboration ended in 2025. The company has since outlined plans to develop its own humanoid hardware. Its previously stated target for an initial public demonstration remains 2027, according to reporting on the restructuring.
The company has not announced a commercial humanoid launch or a new dedicated robotics model as part of this change. The precise effective date of the internal reorganization has not been disclosed.
Sources: Fortune
