Boston Dynamics announced a strategic partnership with Google’s AI research lab, DeepMind, on Monday. The goal is to accelerate the development of its next-generation humanoid robot, Atlas, and make it interact more naturally with people.
The partnership was revealed during a Hyundai press conference at CES 2026. It focuses on robotics research that will utilize Google DeepMind’s AI foundation models. Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot will serve as the initial test case for this collaboration.
Carolina Parada, senior director of robotics at Google DeepMind, explained the ambition behind the effort. The teams aim to integrate cutting-edge AI foundation models with the new Atlas robots to develop the world’s most advanced robot foundation model. This is intended to fulfill the promise of a true general-purpose robot.
This collaboration follows Google DeepMind’s announcement less than a year ago of new AI models called Gemini Robotics. These models are designed to enable robots to perceive, reason, use tools, and interact with humans. Gemini Robotics is built on a large-scale multimodal generative AI model and was trained to generalize behavior across various robotics hardware.
Boston Dynamics and its majority owner, Hyundai Motor Group, bring real-world scaling intent to the partnership. Boston Dynamics already has commercial products like the Spot quadruped in use in over 40 countries. Its warehouse robot, Stretch, has unloaded more than 20 million boxes globally since its 2023 launch.
Now, the companies are preparing for the next generation, starting with the humanoid Atlas, which is already in production and headed to a Hyundai factory. A prototype of Atlas demonstrated its ability to walk onstage during the press conference.
However, as Alberto Rodriguez, director of Atlas behavior at Boston Dynamics, noted, turning Atlas into a product requires more than athletic performance. For humanoids to deliver on their promise, they must be able to interact with people naturally. Rodriguez and his team believe recent advancements in AI have created a clear path to achieving those essential capabilities.