Google is advancing further into the field of physical AI by bringing a familiar robotics software platform under its wing. Intrinsic, an Alphabet-owned company that builds AI models and software to make industrial robots more accessible, is joining Google. The companies announced the move on Wednesday.
Intrinsic will remain a distinct entity within Google but will work closely with Google DeepMind. It will also tap into Google’s Gemini AI models and cloud services. Alphabet declined to share information regarding funding or a purchase price.
Intrinsic became an independent Alphabet-owned company in 2021 after five years of development within Alphabet’s X, the company’s moonshot research division. Other companies that have graduated from X include robotaxi company Waymo and drone delivery company Wing. Wendy Tan White has served as Intrinsic’s CEO since its spinout.
The company hit the ground running. A few months after announcing its independence, Intrinsic acquired Vicarious, a fellow robotics software company, in April 2022. While the purchase price wasn’t disclosed, Vicarious had raised about $250 million from venture capitalists and tech figures like Jeff Bezos. A few months later, Intrinsic acquired several for-profit divisions of Open Robotics, a non-profit organization that builds hardware and software platforms for the robotics industry.
Despite this rapid expansion, Intrinsic laid off 20% of its workforce in January 2023. The company announced its first product, Flowstate, just a few months later. Flowstate is a software platform for developing robotics workflows aimed at developers without deep robotics experience, aligning with the company’s mission to make robotics more accessible.
Since then, the company has fine-tuned the technology, improved its simulation capabilities, and released its Intrinsic Vision AI model in late 2025. Intrinsic announced a joint venture with electronics manufacturer Foxconn in October 2025. The two companies will work together on general-purpose intelligent robots to transform how electronics are manufactured, with the goal of full factory automation.
Now, the company is working toward those goals with closer collaboration with Google’s AI capabilities. In a company blog post, Tan White stated that combined with Google’s AI and infrastructure, they will unlock the promise of physical AI for a broader set of manufacturing businesses and developers, fundamentally shifting production from its economics to operations.
This move makes sense for Google as many tech leaders, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, see physical AI as the next natural step in the monetization and advancement of AI models and technology.