Figure AI CEO skips live demo, sidesteps BMW deal questions onstage at tech conference

Brett Adcock, co-founder and CEO of the humanoid robotics startup Figure AI, made a rare public appearance at the Bloomberg Tech conference on Thursday. Figure has recently been the subject of a couple news articles that questioned its progress with marquee customer BMW. Figure objected so strenuously to at least one of these reports that Adcock publicly threatened to sue the publication.

When asked about the skepticism surrounding the BMW relationship and whether it is a pilot or has commercial value to the company, Adcock replied with an explanation of the technical benefit of having robots on a factory floor but didn’t provide specifics about the contractual relationship with BMW. 

“We get a lot of value, and it’s really important that we need to figure out how to run robots every day. We get to see how well they perform. We get to track all the metrics,” he said. Two months ago, Figure also published a YouTube video showing a couple of its robots working in a BMW factory.

Adcock did, however, say that Figure AI has signed a contract with a second, unnamed customer for initial deployment, a customer that Bloomberg has reported to be UPS.

Figure AI has drawn attention for making claims that its AI-powered robots possess human-like fine motor skills and can manipulate objects with precision. Despite releasing numerous videos of its robots at work, the company hasn’t done a live demonstration of the humanoids.

The interviewer, Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow, pointed out that while two other robotics companies, Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics, showcased their robots at the conference, Figure AI did not. “It kind of goes back to our whole philosophy around we don’t go to a lot of events,” said Adcock. “I think it’s a giant waste of time. To be frank, I have to bring a team here to bring robots here. They could be at the office,” he said, adding that the company is showcasing the robots in videos.

Adcock confirmed that Figure AI is expecting to manufacture and deploy roughly 100,000 units within four years.

The skepticism about Figure’s commercial relationship comes amid the company’s attempts to raise a $1.5 billion round at a $39.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg, a fifteenfold increase from the $2.6 billion valuation it achieved in February 2024.

TechCrunch reported in April that Figure AI has been issuing cease-and-desist letters to secondary market brokers, demanding they stop marketing its shares because they are not authorized to do so.