OpenAI reassigns robotics researchers to other teams as general-purpose models might make specialized robotics AI unnecessary

What happened

The tests used a simulated DROID robot, not a physical one. Across 200 trials, Astra fully completed 7 out of 100 tasks, while MolmoAct2 didn't complete a single one.

OpenAI is dissolving its standalone robotics team for the second time, but not because it lacks data. General-purpose (usable for multiple purposes, as opposed to dedicated to a specific purpose) models like GPT-6 (large language model by OpenAI) Astra can apparently control robots directly, making a dedicated unit unnecessary. OpenAI is an artificial intelligence company based in San Francisco.

The researchers are being redistributed across other teams in what the company frames as a way to accelerate its robotics efforts. Rather than abandoning robotics, the company wants to accelerate it by folding researchers into other teams.

Robotics researchers are moving to the main research team under Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, while the applied robotics and hardware teams join Greg Brockman's Applied organization. OpenAI made the decision on such short notice that it had already booked a booth at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) in Austin, which then sat empty, Fortune reports .

OpenAI apparently believes that general-purpose models like GPT-6 Astra can control robots directly , reducing the need for specialized robotics models. Ad A new robotics benchmark called StationeryBench compared GPT-6 Astra with Ai2's MolmoAct2 on five tasks involving desk objects on dual-arm YAM robotic arms.

Astra's average progress score was 46, compared to 12 for MolmoAct2. In another test, Astra running on a humanoid (a robot built in roughly human shape) robot navigated and cleaned up a kitchen.