Persona AI’s humanoid prototype is learning how to weld as the first of many heavy industry skills.
Humanoids desperately need to stop making YouTube videos and get a job already, andPersona AIis one of the few humanoid companies that seems to be entirely focused on making that happen. Persona AI’s approach has been to carefully select a job that is economically viable for robots right now, and they’ve found one that was also the job ofone of the very first industrial robots ever sold: welding.
IEEE Spectrumfirst spoke with Personatwo years ago, shortly after it was founded byNicolaus RadfordandJerry Pratt. Radford ledthe Valkyrie program at NASA’s Johnson Space Centerback in the day and was also the founder of Nauticus Robotics, while Pratt ledIHMC’sDARPA Robotics Challengeteam before spending a couple of years as CTO ofFigure.
As ofour first conversation in 2024, Persona had committed to building an economically viable humanoid, but they hadn’t yet figured out where their focus was going to be. “We were all over the place,” Radford says. “Warehousing, automotive, we probably even mentioned the home.” These are the same environments with the same sorts of potential applications that basically every other humanoid robotics company is attempting to make economically viabl…
The challenge for Persona, and really for every robotics company, is that it’s not enough that you have a robot that is simply capable of doing a task. It’salsonot enough that your robot can do that task in a way that isefficient, reliable, and safe. What’s required is that your robot can make money for both you and your customer. Most humanoid companies seek to achieve this by targeting baseline “unskilled” human labor.
Persona did not see economic viability in the unskilled labor approach, Radford says. “We started forming this thesis around skilled trades and tool usage.” Persona is targeting much more expensiveskilledlabor with its robots, and the reason why this is feasible is because their entry point focuses on the kind of skills that robots are especially good at. “I like to call it ‘last-mover advantage.’ We’ve seen everything that everybody’s doing, and…
The first task that Persona’s humanoid is focusing on is welding—using a handheld tool to connect one piece of metal to another. “Tool use is pretty difficult,” Pratt says. “And we want to use the same tools that humans do, which makes it more difficult.” That difficulty is offset somewhat by the fact that Persona’s humanoid will first focus on making long, linear welds that are relatively uncomplicated. “This is not the hardest style of weld,” R…
Currently, Persona has two public partnerships: one withHD Hyundai, which is the world’s largest shipbuilder, and the other withPOSCO, one of the largest steel producers in the world, both in Korea. Persona declined to get into detail, but Radford says that broadly speaking, the company is interested in customers who can support ‘hundreds’ of robots per location.
Shipyard welding is an enticing application for Persona because there is a deficit of skilled (and highly paid) workers, it’s taxing physical labor, and it’s a comparatively easy skill for a humanoid to learn.
The welding process is skilled in a very robot-friendly way. Because you can only weld as fast as metal melts, the top speed for the task is an easily manageable centimeter per second. And making a high quality weld involves millimeter-scale repeated motions, which robots excel at, especially over long periods of time—whereas humans tend to get tired or bored. Pratt expects that for these uncomplicated welds, performing on par with humans—if not …
Shipyards make a compelling case for a humanoid with legs, as opposed to amore stable wheeled base. “These open-air shipyards are a couple hundred meters long, with horizontal and vertical spars that you have to step over all the time,” Radford says. “You’ve got to work on the ground, overhead, and through portholes.” Persona considered other form factors, like four legs (or even more), but determined a two-legged robot would be the least disrupt…
Deploying their robots in shipyards specifically brings additional advantages for Persona. The safety concerns that come with bipedal robots—such as potentially falling over on a human worker—are lessened because a shipyard environment is staffed with workers who are trained to work around potentially dangerous industrial equipment. The company is also less sensitive to competitive pricing because no other company is pursuing the use case. “We’re…
The added value for shipbuilders, Radford explains, doesn’t come from replacing humans with robots. “Our current partnerships are running at a significant backlog, and they’re labor-constrained. So we want to help our customers’ top line, not necessarily their bottom line.” In other words, rather than trying to argue that their robots will lower shipbuilding costs, Persona is instead arguing that their robots will allow more ships to be built. “E…
Shipyards are environments where legs are necessary for a robot to be useful.CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
In the current commercial humanoid climate, where the emphasis seems to be on developing a “general purpose” robot (whatever that means) that will somehow justify itself through some undefined scale in some equally undefined and perpetually receding future, Persona stands out with their focus on a seemingly viable, near-term, and very specific business case. It hasn’t been easy, though. “It hurts us a little bit,” Radford says. “We’ve been told t…
But a tool-using heavy industrial humanoid has plenty of future applications, many of which can be expanded from the welding skill even within shipyards. “Shipbuilding is a great beachhead,” Pratt says. “There are tons of adjacent markets, like grinding, painting, and other kinds of fabrication.” Persona’s ambition, Radford adds, is to be “the largest repository of industrial skills.”
It’s going to take time to get there. That time will be needed to collect tens of thousands of hours of expert demonstration data, create high-fidelity simulations, and conduct real-world testing. And however promising Persona’s approach may seem, the company still has to prove that its idea for an economically viable robotics company can be realized. It’s the same challenge that every humanoid robot company is facing. “A lot of the technical pro…
Evan Ackermanis a senior editor atIEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.
Maybe start with cleaning our toilets! Simple stuff, no? Public health is priceless.
Logical focus, good application. In a short time, they may be calling their product “the world’s most experienced welder” similar to Waymo already calling theirs “the world’s most experienced driver”. We live in an exciting, not-necessarily-comfortable time.
It’s going to take time to get there. That time will be needed to collect tens of thousands of hours of expert demonstration data, create high-fidelity simulations, and conduct real-world testing. That is my favorite line.