Apple's $133B humanoid moonshot

PLUS: This bot can withstand 1,200°F

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
November 10, 2025

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Apple’s next big play might walk, talk, and do the dishes. Morgan Stanley predicts the company could pull in $133B a year from humanoids by 2040, outpacing today's entire hardware lineup outside the iPhone and rivaling its booming Services business.

If that vision holds, the iPhone maker’s future may not fit in your pocket much longer.

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Apple could make $133B a year on robots

  • This robot can survive a blazing inferno

  • Amazon tests Whole Foods robot store

  • This ‘brain-free’ bot runs on air

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: Apple could rake in $133B annually from humanoids by 2040, according to a new Morgan Stanley analysis that reimagines the iPhone maker as a robotics powerhouse.

The details:

  • Led by Apple analyst Erik Woodring, Morgan Stanley predicts that Apple could own 9% of the global robotics market in 15 years.

  • Apple is already exploring personal home robots, including a mobile home robot and a motorized tabletop device, as reported earlier this year.

  • At ~$133B in annual robot revenue, Apple would dwarf the Mac’s ~$30B a year and surpass 2024 Services’ $96B by about 38%.

  • Morgan Stanley pegs the broader humanoid and embodied AI market at $5 trillion by 2050.

Why it matters: Morgan Stanley sketches a product roadmap starting with a tabletop “hub” robot as early as 2027 — the on-ramp before Apple scales to full humanoids. The projection: by 2040, robotics could dwarf Mac and iPad combined, rivaling Services as Apple's second-largest business behind the iPhone.

PARADIGM ROBOTICS

Image source: Paradigm Robotics

The Rundown: A Texas startup is building a robot that rolls into burning buildings so firefighters don’t have to walk in blind. FireBot survives 1,200°F (650°C) for 15 minutes, streaming thermal video, gas readings, and live intel back to command control.

The details:

  • FireBot v4 is a tracked firefighting scout built by Paradigm Robotics, a startup founded by University of Texas engineering alum Siddharth Thakur.

  • Built with stainless steel, tungsten, and titanium, it packs cameras and sensors that beam live video and data from inside a blaze via a handheld controller.

  • At about 300 lb. and four feet long, it crawls through debris to map hotspots and flag toxic plumes to forewarn crews.

  • The team is trialing Austin area fire departments, pitching FireBot as a data scout rather than a hose robot like Thermite RS3 or Shark Robotics’ Colossus.

Why it matters: First entry into a structure fire is often blind guesswork that puts firefighters at maximum risk. FireBot turns that crucial moment into a data problem, enabling commanders to see heat gradients, structural hazards, and gas concentrations before anyone crosses the door.

AMAZON

Image source: Amazon

The Rundown: Amazon just wired a Whole Foods outside Philadelphia with a robot-run “store within a store,” where a 10K-square-foot micro-fulfillment center pulls major brands like Tide and Pepperidge Farm alongside the grocer’s organics. 

The details:

  • Powered by Silicon Valley robotics startup Fulfil’s automated system, autonomous ShopBots fetch groceries from more than 12K stocked items.

  • ShopBots sort, retrieve, and stage products across multiple temperature zones behind the scenes while keeping aisles human-only.

  • In-store shoppers scan QR codes or use the Amazon app, then grab their bagged items at a pickup counter “within minutes,” Amazon says.

  • The test is part of Amazon’s broader grocery rethink, layering automation into Whole Foods after years of format experiments.

Why it matters: Amazon looks to crack the economics of grocery automation by hiding robots behind the walls instead of redesigning entire stores around them. If the hybrid model scales, it turns every Whole Foods into an instant-pickup hub without sacrificing the browse-and-buy experience that kept Just Walk Out from taking off.

ROBOTICS RESEARCH

Image source: University of Oxford

The Rundown: Oxford engineers just built “brain-free” soft robots that run on air — no chips, code, or motors — using modular fluidic blocks that act as muscle, sensor, and valve.

The details:

  • Published in Advanced Materials, the study shows these “fluidic robots” can produce complex, rhythmic motion.

  • By feeding them steady pressure, the robots self‑oscillate and sync like fireflies, hopping and crawling without a single line of software.

  • The tiny modular units snap together like LEGO to form tabletop robots roughly the size of a shoebox that can hop, shake, or crawl.

  • The team built a crawler robot that detects table edges and stops before falling, and a shaker robot that sorts beads by tilting a rotating platform.

Why it matters: Encoding decision-making directly into a robot's physical structure eliminates the need for software to “think,” creating robots that are faster and more efficient. Next phase: larger, untethered versions that could operate in extreme environments where electronics fail, like deep underwater or in space.

QUICK HITS

Elon Musk says Tesla will likely build a gigantic chip fab to supply the semiconductors needed for its expanding AI and robotics ambitions.

Agility Robotics and Figure AI had a brief Twitter spat after Figure’s CEO claimed first-in-the-world autonomous humanoid bragging rights and Agility pushed back.

XPeng's IRON humanoid moved so realistically at its AI Day debut that engineers had to cut open its leg onstage to prove it wasn't a person in a costume.

Elon Musk floated replacing prison time with a “more humane” alternative: assigning offenders a Tesla Optimus robot that shadows them and monitors for future crimes.

Salad chain Sweetgreen is selling its Spyce robotics unit — maker of the Infinite Kitchen makelines — to Wonder for $186.4M.

Goldman Sachs’ Nov. 3–6 field research reportedly finds China’s humanoid suppliers in a “capacity-first” push — pre-building 100K–1M units of annual output.

Elon Musk says Tesla will start production of the pedal- and steering-wheel-free Cybercab in April at its Austin factory.

REK (Robot Entertainment Kombat) is launching “REK America,” taking its VR‑piloted humanoid fighting league on a five-city U.S. tour.

Robotaxi maker WeRide began trading in Hong Kong last week, adding a dual listing alongside Nasdaq, as CEO Tony Han courts global capital to bankroll its costly R&D.

Poseidon Aerospace raised $11M in seed funding to develop Egret and Heron cargo UAVs, a logistics-first bet to strengthen battlefield supply chains.

The father–son duo behind the world’s fastest quadcopter has built a battery‑free drone that looks like a flying solar panel, designed to run entirely on sunlight.

At deadmau5’s Red Rocks show on Sunday, Figure deployed its humanoids onstage as part of the production, integrating them into the set and visuals (with mixed results).

COMMUNITY

That's it for today!

Before you go we'd love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team