Humanoid robots are moving from demonstrations toward factories and warehouses, and Figure AI wants safety to become a more visible part of that shift. The Bay Area robotics firm announced Tuesday that it is creating the Center for the Advancement of Humanoid Safety, an internal division focused on the risks that come with putting human-shaped machines into workplaces.
The effort is being led by Rob Gruendel, a former Amazon Robotics safety engineer. He revealed the plan in a LinkedIn post, framing the center as a way to test, explain and improve how Figure’s robots operate around people.
Why humanoid robot safety is becoming urgent
Companies including Amazon, Mercedes and BMW have announced humanoid pilots for factories and warehouses. Those pilots have helped push humanoid robotics into the spotlight, but the attention has often centered on capability, deployment and industry excitement rather than worker safety.
That imbalance matters because humanoids are designed for the same environments where people already work. Their value comes partly from adaptability, multi-purpose functionality and the ability to fit into existing brownfield warehouses. Those same traits also mean they may move through shared spaces instead of staying isolated behind barriers.
Older factory and warehouse automation often handled the safety problem by placing large robots inside cages. More recent approaches have used technology such as advanced computer vision, software from Veo Robotics and an Amazon safety vest intended to help prevent robots from colliding with people.
Those approaches show that robotics safety has already been evolving, but the humanoid form factor creates a different set of questions. A freely moving metal body in a workplace can create collision risks for nearby human workers. The central safety challenge is not only whether a robot can perform a task, but whether it can do so reliably in close proximity to people.
What Figure AI says it will test
Figure AI’s new center is intended to focus on the safety of Figure 02 and future robots. Gruendel said the company has already made progress on formal certification planning with an OSHA recognized independent testing laboratory.
“One of our recent successes was to finalize a formal plan with our OSHA recognized independent testing laboratory to certify our robot’s battery, functional safety control system, and electrical system to industrial standards,” Gruendel noted in the announcement post.
The center’s planned testing areas are broad. Figure says it wants to communicate with customers about stability, human detection, pet detection, safe AI behaviors and navigation intended to prevent injury.
Those categories point to the specific kinds of situations humanoid robots may face in real workplaces. A robot must remain stable while stationary and while moving. It must be able to detect people. It must also respond safely when navigating around living beings, including four-legged pets, if the technology eventually moves beyond industrial settings.
Gruendel described the effort as a direct communication channel with customers rather than a closed internal program.
“We recognize that the general population is often at the mercy of the technology experts to judge whether an AI-controlled robot can be safe,” Gruendel wrote. “We want to speak directly with our customers. We will test and communicate the robot’s stability while stationary, stability while moving, detection of humans, detection of four-legged pets, safe AI behaviors, and navigation to prevent injury. We will listen to suggestions from our customers on ways to test the safety of Figure 02 and beyond.”
The standards gap around robotics
The broader regulatory environment remains unsettled. Workplace safety organizations such as Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) still have ground to cover on automation safety. According to the federal agency, there are no “specific OSHA standards for the robotics industry,” a gap that becomes more important as humanoid systems move closer to active workplaces.
That does not mean safety work is absent. It means the industry is developing technology and testing practices in an area where specific robotics rules have not yet caught up with deployment ambitions. For humanoids, that gap is especially visible because the category is built around working near humans.
Other companies and safety leaders have also raised concerns. Fetch founder, Melonee Wise, has emphasized humanoid safety since joining Agility Robotics as chief technology officer in 2023. During a humanoids panel at last year’s Automate conference, she pointed to unclear safety practices across the field.
“With any humanoid robot operating in this space, safety is not clear,” Wise told me during a humanoids panel at last year’s Automate conference. “There isn’t an easy stop for [Tesla’s] Optimus. There isn’t a stop on many [humanoid robots], and that is against the safety standard. It’s very clear that many of the companies are not interested in it.”
Her comments underline why a dedicated safety center is more than a public-facing announcement. If humanoid robots are expected to work around people, companies will need to show how they identify hazards, test responses and correct problems.
Transparency could shape the next phase
Figure AI says it plans to publish quarterly updates about the center’s work. Those reports are expected to include testing procedures and fixes for potential hazards, giving customers and observers more visibility into what is being tested and what the company changes as a result.
“We will summarize our successes and failures,” according to Gruendel.
That commitment is notable because robotics safety is not only about final claims. It is also about the process used to uncover weak points. Publicly discussing failures could help clarify which risks are being found during testing and how the company responds before robots are more widely deployed.
The stakes may extend beyond factories and warehouses. The source article notes that closing safety gaps could help prepare the industry for a larger step: bringing robots into the home. If humanoids eventually enter domestic spaces, expectations around stability, detection, navigation and safe AI behavior will become even more important.
For now, Figure AI’s center gives the company a formal structure for a problem that the humanoid robotics industry can no longer treat as secondary. As pilots expand and the machines move closer to people, safety standards, testing transparency and clear communication will be central to whether humanoid robots can become trusted workplace tools.