Story perspectives

Google DeepMind launches Gemini Robotics 2 for whole-body robot control

7/31/2026

Summary

Story summary

Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2, an AI model that controls whole-body movements of robots.
It merges a vision-language model with two vision-language-action models and adds safety guardrails and the ASIMOV-Agentic benchmark.
Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, said the model translates intent into whole-body control and advances toward physical AGI.
Videos showed the Apollo 2 robot picking watering cans, screwing bulbs, tying bin bags and tidying shelves.

History

Historical Context

Boston Dynamics unveiled the Atlas humanoid on July 11 2013 under DARPA’s $2 million Robotics Challenge, a contest inspired by the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The robot evolved from a tethered prototype with 28 degrees of freedom to a battery-powered version that performed backflips in 2016 before its retirement in April 2024, setting the stage for DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics 2 household-task system.

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Story summary

Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2, an AI model that controls whole-body movements of robots.
It merges a vision-language model with two vision-language-action models and adds safety guardrails and the ASIMOV-Agentic benchmark.
Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, said the model translates intent into whole-body control and advances toward physical AGI.
Videos showed the Apollo 2 robot picking watering cans, screwing bulbs, tying bin bags and tidying shelves.

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