Sam Altman's stealth robotics bet

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly backing Alfred, a stealth startup building software to speed up the slow, grinding R&D behind robots and cars.

Alfred co-founder Ankit Ukil, an ex-Tesla designer, says automakers, defense, and robotics firms are already circling. As OpenAI hires to push robots into the physical world, Alfred is focused on the chaotic stack of tools slowing engineers down.

In today’s robotics rundown:

• Sam Altman backs stealthy robotics startup

• BYD wants to sell humanoids like cars

• Study finds robotaxis don’t cut traffic

• Serve’s delivery robots now do laundry

• Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ALFRED

🤫 Sam Altman backs stealthy robotics startup

The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly backing Alfred, a stealthy nine-month-old startup out of Hawthorne, California, that’s building software to compress the brutally slow R&D cycles behind robots and cars.

The details:

• The startup is run by Ankit Ukil, a former Tesla designer, and Dömötör Gulyas, an ex-Meta Reality Labs engineer, with a team from Tesla, Ford, and Honda.

• Alfred builds tools for engineers, not the machines themselves — automating grunt work so they can chase the features Ukil says Chinese EVs already have.

• Ukil told Business Insider that talks are underway to sell to automakers, defense firms, and robotics companies, none of which he’d name.

• Physical AI startups pulled in roughly $5.3B in April alone, per Crunchbase, and Altman spent the weekend on X sketching his robotics vision.

Why it matters: While a heap of physical AI money has gone to hardware, Alfred is targeting the software that those machines rely on. But the lane is already crowded with rivals like Siemens and Dassault and startups like Leo AI adding a similar kind of AI tooling, so a nine-month-old company will have to show it can actually do this better.

BYD

🤖 BYD wants to sell humanoids like cars

The Rundown: Chinese EV giant BYD confirmed it’s building humanoids in-house, expects to be one of the biggest buyers of them itself, and may eventually sell them through the global dealer network that already moves its EVs.

The details:

• EVP Stella Li said the EV giant is developing humanoids, arguing automotive AI and robotics spring from the same roots.

• BYD’s “Yao‑Shun‑Yu” program has already reportedly reached a seventh‑gen prototype, with some 150 humanoids running trials on its production lines.

• The plan is an open platform: BYD would build its own machines while hosting partners’, mirroring the supplier-heavy model it runs in cars.

• It’s already wired in — strategic stakes in PaXini and AgiBot, plus UBTech’s Walker robots hauling parts across its factory floors.

Why it matters: BYD is testing humanoids on its factory floors, building in-house models, and eyeing its 4S dealer network as a future channel for robotics sales and demos. The dealer angle is still speculative, but BYD has the manufacturing base, internal demand, and retail footprint to scale fast if humanoids go commercial.

WAYMO

🚖 Study finds robotaxis don’t cut traffic

The Rundown: Robotaxis were sold as a fix for urban gridlock, but the first rigorous look at Waymo’s California operations finds they reproduce the same empty-mileage problem that already plagues Uber and Lyft, reports Ars Technica.

The details:

• The study finds that robotaxis generate about the same overall traffic load as Uber and Lyft, including a large share of miles driven without passengers.

• The two-year study tracked roughly 14M Waymo trips and 86M vehicle miles reported to regulators, finding only 54% of those miles carried a passenger.

• Because most robotaxi trips are short, solo rides that often replace transit, walking, or biking rather than cars, their net effect on congestion is minimal.

• The results mirror earlier findings on Uber and Lyft, indicating autonomy alone does little to ease gridlock without policy intervention.

Why it matters: Robotaxis are being permitted on the promise they’ll reduce traffic, but early data shows they inherit ride-hailing’s congestion problem rather than solve it — and unless regulators cap deadheading and tie permits to occupancy, cities risk locking in a more car-dependent grid under a high-tech veneer.

SERVE ROBOTICS

🧺 Serve’s delivery robots now do laundry

The Rundown: Serve Robotics is putting its sidewalk delivery bots to work on laundry, launching an LA pilot with on-demand service NoScrubs to wring more revenue out of robots that mostly haul dinner.

The details:

• NoScrubs users in LA can now schedule pickup and drop-off by Serve robots, which handle the runs during the dead hours between meal rushes.

• The pilot leans on Serve’s existing fleet — roughly 2K robots nationwide, 500 of them in LA — so the company adds a revenue line without new hardware.

• Laundry is Serve’s first move beyond food, a test case for the dry cleaning, pharmacy, and grocery runs it could target next.

• Sidewalk bots are facing backlash from LA residents, who say they clog sidewalks and threaten delivery jobs; nearby Glendale is pursuing tighter rules.

Why it matters: Serve is still burning cash, and stacking more deliveries onto idle robots is the cleanest way to prove the unit economics hold up. Rivals like Starship, Nuro, and Kiwibot are chasing last-mile and campus deals, so Serve needs laundry to show that life after food delivery can actually scale.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Tesla launched an unsupervised robotaxi service across the Austin metro area, after nearly a year of testing in the city.

China is reportedly pushing a slate of robotics companies, including Unitree, toward IPOs to raise R&D capital and test investor appetite for “physical AI.”

Taiwan’s military research institute demoed armed Ghost Robotics robot dogs that marines hope to deploy for patrols on Taiwan-controlled South China Sea islands.

SoftBank is reportedly in early talks to invest over $300M in an $800M funding round for German industrial robotics startup Agile Robots.

European defense AI company Helsing launched the RX-1, Europe’s first sovereign military quadruped robot, alongside a new research division called Area 9.

Chinese neurotech startup BrainCo reportedly expects sales of its dexterous robotic hands to surge as China’s fast-growing humanoid makers ramp up orders.

DARPA is soliciting proposals for swarms of robot medics capable of dragging wounded soldiers to safety, injecting drugs, and self-assembling into tourniquets.

SwitchBot’s parent company, OneRobotics, is reportedly acquiring Nanoleaf for about $40M.

Researchers used biohybrid microrobots to bridge damaged spinal cords in mice, partially restoring movement and hinting at a future spinal injury treatment.

Scientists built “paleo robots” modeled on walking fish to test how early vertebrates might have first hauled themselves onto land millions of years ago.

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