Update: Figure CEO Brett Adcock posted on X on April 25 that he’s pursuing legal action against Fortune for what he calls falsehoods in the reporting.
“We knew building one of the most groundbreaking companies on the planet would not be easy, and media would ask questions. What we won’t stand for are the mischaracterizations and downright lies written in the recent Fortune article by Jason Del Rey about Figure’s business and its partnerships. As we informed Fortune today, Figure’s litigation counsel will aggressively pursue all available legal remedies – including, but not limited to, defamation claims – to correct the publication’s blatant misstatements,” he wrote.
A PR representative from Longacre Square Partners also reached out regarding this blog post: “I’m repping Figure Ai and Brett Adcock. Can we speak about your recent post ‘Figure AI Under Scrutiny for BMW Factory Claims as It Seeks $40B Valuation?’ You’ve got the timeline wrong on Brett’s departure and what happened at Archer.”
I’ve added context for clarity. The original post follows.
One of the most well-funded startups in the race to mass deploy humanoid robots finds itself under growing scrutiny as questions mount about the true capability of its technology.
Silicon Valley-based Figure AI is facing criticism for possibly exaggerating the work its Figure 02 robots are doing at a BMW factory in Spartanburg, SC.
Founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, Figure has rapidly become a focal point in the tech industry due to its ambitious goals and significant financial backing. The company’s aim of deploying more than 200,000 humanoid robots by 2029 has attracted both interest and skepticism.
Now, a series of unflattering news reports has hit the startup as it reportedly seeks to raise $1.5 billion dollars from investors for a valuation of nearly $40 billion. The shocking amount would place Figure’s value above Ford Motor Company and Spotify. They’re now going for Series C funding, signaling an aggressive push to scale after demonstrating early product value.
Figure’s controversy could ripple beyond the company itself, fueling investor fears that hype is outpacing reality and intensifying concerns that an AI bubble may be forming.
Figure announced a partnership agreement with BMW back in January 2024 to explore integrating humanoid robots into its manufacturing processes. A few weeks later, the company announced it secured $675 million in a Series B funding round for a $2.6 billion valuation.
By August 2024, Figure and BMW reported successful tests of the Figure 02 robot during the technical evaluation phase. During the pilot, the companies said the robot successfully performed tasks like inserting sheet metal parts into fixtures.
In late 2024, Adcock announced that Figure had delivered robots to its first commercial client. He did not name BMW explicitly, but industry observers widely understood the automaker to be the client given past statements and the existing partnership. He celebrated the occasion, saying the startup officially became a revenue-generating company.
Heading into 2025, Adcock said a fleet of the robots would be working full-time for the plant, which is the automaker’s largest manufacturer of vehicles by volume. As Figure prepared for the deployment, Adcock gave Herbert Ong and robotics expert Scott Walter a tour of Figure’s headquarters, where robots trained for the upcoming deployment.
Fortune tech correspondent Jason Del Rey contacted the automaker after seeing a post from Adcock in February indicating that a fleet of Figure 02 robots were performing end to end operations at the plant.
In a LinkedIn post, the reporter said he was surprised when a spokesman told him the manufacturer was only running off-hour tests with a single humanoid robot at any given time. The testing involved a single task: retrieving metal sheets and placing them into fixtures to get ready for welding.
“Figure AI is a heavily funded humanoid robot maker that has a real deal with BMW to test its robot in a real working auto plant,” Del Rey wrote. “So when I saw Figure’s founder and CEO Brett Adcock publish a post in February indicating that Figure had a ‘fleet’ of robots performing ‘end-to-end operations’ at BMW, I reached out to the automaker to get more details, assuming what I read was real too.”
The automaker declined to explain the discrepancy, he said, and directed further questions to the founder, who didn’t respond to inquiries. Del Rey stressed that no one is denying the partnership is real and that an onsite press event is scheduled for May.
“But the seeming discrepancies in such a high-profile and potentially seminal deal raise awkward questions for an industry that still needs to prove it’s more than just glossy demos and founder-fueled hype,” he wrote.
The Wall Street Journal also published a critical piece questioning Figure’s expansive claims.
According to the Journal, a BMW spokesman said it had three of the robots at its facility for technical evaluation as of April 1. Only one robot was in use at a time, practicing picking up and grasping parts during non-production hours in the plant’s body shop. The following week, BMW told the newspaper that there were now more than three robots on-site in use in non-production and live-production situations.
A few weeks earlier, Adcock discussed the project in an interview with futurist Peter Diamandis, a Figure investor.
“We have robots there (at BMW) that are operating every single day,” he said. “They’re in Spartanburg, SC. They’re helping build cars.”
The same day the Fortune piece ran, Adcock posted a short video from BMW on X with more conservative language. He said the robots at BMW are advancing thanks to Figure’s self-developed AI system called Helix.
Figure announced its Helix AI system earlier this year, positioning it as a breakthrough that will enable the widescale deployment of autonomous humanoids. The announcement came shortly after the startup severed its relationship with OpenAI. At the time, the founder said relying on external models had become less practical than developing one tailored for robotics in-house.
According to Figure, Helix is a vision language action model tailored for humanoid robotics control. The startup says the model is the first of its kind to run on multiple robots simultaneously.
Figure also released footage of several of its robots performing sorting tasks at an unnamed warehouse. Adcock has said Figure’s second customer is one of the world’s largest logistics companies. With the new customer, Adcock said he saw a path toward manufacturing 100,000 Figure humanoids over the next four years.
Figure is also planning to start testing its robots at homes starting this year. The company is aiming for a price point of between $20K and $30K once production is scaled, which is in line with what competitors like Tesla and 1X Technologies are targeting.
Critics have been quick to point out that Adcock faced accusations of misleading investors as co-founder of Archer Aviation.
A class action lawsuit filed in September 2023 claimed that Archer exaggerated its flight-testing achievements and misrepresented the feasibility of its FAA certification timeline. The allegations were in part based on a report by Grizzly Research, which accused Archer of using heavily edited videos to overstate the technological progress of its air taxis.
Edit: While Adcock was named in the class action lawsuit filed in 2023, he had already stepped down from his role as co-CEO and board member at Archer Aviation in 2022.
While the suit was later voluntarily dismissed, the controversy continues to cast a shadow over Adcock’s business dealings. Adcock left Archer in 2022, citing a misalignment between his vision and the board’s direction, particularly after the company went public.
As the humanoid robotics industry expands, companies like Figure face challenges as the gap between expectations and reality widens.
Chinese firms like Unitree Robotics and EngineAI frequently showcase the advanced capabilities of their robots, which are primarily intended for researchers and developers at this point. As robots like the Unitree G1 become commercially available, customers have expressed disappointment that the advanced movements require significant expertise and training to achieve.
Figure is seen as one of the biggest threats to Tesla as it plans to scale production of its Optimus humanoid robots. After a fleet of Tesla Bots stole the show at the company’s fall 2024 “We, Robot” event, critics quickly called the automaker out for not disclosing that they were primarily controlled by teleoperation.
Elon Musk will likely get called out if his plans to send a Tesla Optimus to Mars next year don’t materialize. For more on those plans, read this.