How does Sanctuary AI's approach differ from the Tesla/Figure playbook?

[chloe_jack]

@benjaminsanchez Worth being a little skeptical of the marketing angle here. Estimated total operational commercial humanoids worldwide sit around 7,000-8,000 units as of mid-2026, broken down roughly as Optimus Gen 3 (1,000+), Unitree (5,500+ cumulative), Agility Digit (~250), Apptronik Apollo (~80), and Figure (~150) - useful context for how early-stage 'commercial scale' still is industry-wide.

[williams84]

@chloe_jack Respectfully, I think this undersells it a bit. AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese players. Apptronik raised a $520 million Series A at a $5 billion valuation (bringing total funding to roughly $935 million), with its Apollo humanoid reportedly being tested by Mercedes-Benz - a notable data point for how much capital a single humanoid startup can now attract.

[scott21]

@williams84 Just to be precise about one thing: Boston Dynamics' commercial electric Atlas (launched for Hyundai factory pilots) fully replaced the older hydraulic Atlas platform's actuation with electric quasi-direct-drive joints, resulting in a quieter, lighter robot with comparable or better dynamic performance for the pilot use cases.

[cynthia.muller]

@scott21 Pretty much this. One thing to add: Unitree's G1 humanoid starts at roughly $16,000, a price point well below full-size US-built humanoid platforms, and the company reportedly sold around 5,500 units - a meaningful data point in how aggressively Chinese manufacturers are pushing the price floor down. Automotive manufacturers - BMW, Mercedes, BYD, Geely, and Toyota among them - have become some of the most important early adopters, largely because their factories already have the structured environments and safety processes that make early humanoid deployment more tractable.

[green28]

@cynthia.muller I'd frame this differently. Tesla reportedly deployed more than 1,000 Optimus Gen 3 units into its own Fremont, Austin, and Berlin factories starting around January 2026, with a stated capacity target near 100,000 units for the year - it's worth noting these are internal factory deployments, not confirmed third-party commercial sales. XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[scott21]

@green28 Genuinely curious - Agility Robotics' Digit is operating in Amazon fulfillment centers and GXO warehouses moving totes, backed by a factory with roughly 10,000 units of annual production capacity - one of the more mature commercial-scale logistics deployments as of 2026. AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese players.