Entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath sits down with Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure AI to unpack everything from building fully autonomous humanoids to their sweeping economic and social impact.
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, November 7, 2025: In the new episode of WTF Online, entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath sits down with Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure AI, for an in-depth exploration of what many are calling the next great technological revolution: humanoid robotics.
Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure AI
Created to explore the industries and ideas that spark Nikhil Kamath’s curiosity, this conversation offers an unfiltered look at how AI and robotics will transform life, work, and human purpose. Nikhil and Brett unpack everything from building fully autonomous humanoids to their sweeping economic and social impact. Key themes include:
1. AI’s Next Frontier: Humanoids: Nikhil invites Brett to unpack the extraordinary engineering that goes into creating autonomous humanoid robots and asks, “Can we start with you breaking down a robot, Brett? What’s inside?”
Brett deep dives into what he describes as one of the most vertically integrated engineering efforts in modern robotics. He envisions a near future where billions of humanoid robots coexist alongside people, performing household chores, and transforming industries, including logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare. For him, humanoids represent not just a technological frontier, but the next great evolution in human productivity and progress. Together, this deeply integrated hardware: AI system forms a humanoid capable of learning, adapting, and functioning autonomously in human-designed spaces.
Entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath
2. Scaling Humanoids: The Energy Dilemma: Nikhil probes Brett on the core engineering bottlenecks facing humanoid robotics, and whether it’s truly possible to reach human-level efficiency. Brett explains that the real challenge is moving from task-specific performance to true general intelligence, building robots that can think, adapt, and operate autonomously in unpredictable environments. He explains that their biggest challenge lies in developing general-purpose robotics, creating a robot capable of entering an unfamiliar home and performing tasks simply by responding to spoken or voice commands.
Brett also explains that one of the hardest frontiers in robotics, handling deformable objects such as laundry. Additionally, energy efficiency remains another major challenge. “Today we’re far less efficient than a human. Humans are extremely efficient,” Brett acknowledges. However, he notes that current humanoids can already perform physical work for nearly a full human shift, depending on the task, making them commercially viable with a positive ROI in real-world applications. The path to scaling, he emphasizes, lies in balancing intelligence, adaptability, and energy efficiency.
3. The Age of Embodied AI: Nikhil and Brett discuss how AI will redefine human-machine interaction and why today’s devices, built “pre AI,” are due for reinvention. “Is that the new form factor for AI overall, to communicate with AI? Because a lot of people have been extrapolating what could be the next form factor after the cell phone. How does a man communicate with a computer tomorrow?” Nikhil asks.
Brett explains saying, “My view is that like voice is the natural like UI into artificial super intelligence here in general, whether it’s like digital systems or physical systems.” he says. He predicts voice models will be near human level EQ and context within 12 to 18 months, passing Turing tests and powering a new generation of AI-native hardware - intelligent language devices and humanoid robots, connected and adaptive. Additionally, while hardware remains a strong differentiator today, Brett notes that the real long-term moat will be data, context, and memory.
4. Who Wins the Robot Race? The conversation turns to global competition in humanoid robotics, as Nikhil asks Brett to assess how Figure AI’s progress compares with the rest of the world, particularly China.
Brett draws a sharp distinction between manufacturing scale and technological capability. “There is a ton of manufacturing capacity in China.” he acknowledges, “but the robots they make just don’t work very well, to be frank. They’re very far from even where we’re at at Figure.” He explains that most Chinese players are making hardware-only bets, often building robots without functional hands or integrated AI. He further adds that one can buy the robot hardware, but it comes down to how to make it work.
In contrast, the U.S. advantage more broadly lies in mastering the intelligence layer. “Right now, America is winning this. I think globally,” To win that race, Brett says, requires excellence on three fronts: world-class hardware design, cutting-edge AI, and seamless system integration to create robots that can perform meaningful work. “What matters is shipping a product at scale that can generate the data to increase intelligence and reduce cost. That's who wins, in my mind. Who's the first to a million robots in market? That's a big marker that will help determine the leader.” he concludes. In his view, the future of humanoids won’t be determined by who can build the most robots, but by who can make them think the best , and, for now, that edge firmly belongs to the United States.
5. Would You Trust a Robot?: Nikhil asks Brett Adcock about the ultimate benchmark for home robotics: trust. “You spoke about kids, Brett. Would you leave your kids with your humanoid?”
Brett answers candidly, acknowledging that while Figure’s robots have made remarkable progress, they are “not there today.” He shares that he currently keeps a close watch on the robot when it operates in his home, where he has young children. “I would not let my robot roam free for hours and weeks right now with my young kids,” he admits. For Brett, true safety means reaching the point where he could confidently leave a Figure robot alone with his children, running fully autonomously. Achieving that, he says, will require a “certain track record of safety and performance”. On the question of companionship and design, Brett envisions a future where humanoids evolve into emotionally intelligent companions. “The robot will know if you’ve had a tough day based on the sound of your voice,” he says, a reflection of high EQ that could redefine human-machine relationships.
6. Who’s Building the Future?: When Nikhil asks Brett to map out the competitive landscape, he asks, “What’s happening with the others in your industry, Brett? Who’s doing what, which is very cool?” Brett notes an “emergence of new companies” in the space, each making distinct strategic bets. “In our mind, you really can’t choose one or the other. You have to just, like, you have to go down a road where you do the hardware. You do it incredibly well. You do the AI and then you put it all together really well. The companies that can do really well are going do both really well.” he says. According to Brett, most competitors fall into two broad camps: Hardware-Only Bets and AI-Only Bets. Brett cautions that much of what’s shown publicly in this field can be misleading. He highlights that many high-profile demonstrations are tele-operated, meaning the robots are being controlled by humans rather than operating autonomously through neural networks.
7. Startup Wisdom: Advice for Entrepreneurs: The conversation concludes with Nikhil asking Brett to imagine a world where humanoids perform most human tasks: at home and at work? Nikhil asks, “Beyond this utopian future, when the humanoids are doing most of what humans can do today from a work lens or from even a home lens, what happens to the world? What happens to socialism? What happens to capitalism? What happens to labor? What happens to a job and getting a salary?”
Brett predicts a transformation as sweeping and far faster than the software revolution. Just as “software ate the world,” he says, AI systems will eat everything, with humanoids at the center of this next industrial wave. He foresees the creation of the largest company in human history, powered by synthetic agents capable of working affordably, efficiently, and around the clock. “If that’s true, which I think is very high likelihood in the future, the prices of goods and services will slowly start collapsing, basically approaching zero.” Brett explains. This would usher in an era of radical material abundance, where the marginal cost of most goods and services nears zero. Economic metrics themselves may shift, from measuring GDP per capita to GDP per humanoid.
While Brett views this future as liberating, he also acknowledges a deeper social reckoning ahead. Once synthetic agents can do nearly everything humans can, the crisis won’t be economic but existential, redefining how people find meaning, purpose, and identity in a post-labor world.
8. Where to Bet the Next Dollar: On where an investor should put their money, Nikhil asks Brett, “If you had one dollar to invest, where would it be?”Brett’s answer is clear: bet on companies mastering both hardware and AI. Looking ahead, Brett predicts, “AI systems will eat everything” withhumanoids becoming the largest economic opportunity in history. For investors, the message is simple: the winning bet is on companies that can make robots think and move seamlessly.
Catch the full episode here: Humanoids Cost as Much as an SUV Now | Nikhil Kamath x Brett Adcock | WTF Online Ep 2
