Robots can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks, such as packing boxes and even performing surgery. But each individual movement or task requires its own specific training process, making it difficult for robots to adapt to real-world scenarios.
Embody wants to make training robots easier and faster with the help of AI agents. The company will showcase this technology as one of the top 20 Startup Battlefield finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
New York-based Embody created the cloud-to-edge system, a hybrid computing system using both cloud and local computing, designed to integrate into existing robotic technology stacks. The software relies on multiple AI agents that communicate with each other to gather the information needed to help the robot learn a task faster.
Once deployed, Embody will collect data and learn from its real-world use cases.
Mbodi co-founder and CEO Xavier Chi told TechCrunch that users give prompts to the software using natural language, and Mbodi breaks the request down into smaller subtasks. Embody’s group of agents essentially divide and conquer the task of gathering the information needed to quickly train the robot.
“The tricky thing with the physical world, it’s infinite possibilities,” Chi said. “Every time you can invent something completely new, you don’t have any data, that’s a problem in the physical world. We always need a system where you can organize different models or have someone perfect the robot and make it do certain things certain ways.”
Chi said he and co-founder Sebastian Peralta came up with the idea for the company while working as engineers at Google. When they weren’t working on robotics, the two realized that advances in AI were catching up to the physical world and that despite the growth in physical AI, there was no good way to quickly train a robot.
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Many companies like Skilled AI and FieldAI want to help train robots faster by creating big-world AI models with enough real-world data to make it easier for them to adapt to new environments. Chi said that philosophy does not work given how constantly the world changes.
Mbodi was launched in 2024 with a focus on picking and packaging. The company won the ABB Robotics AI Startup Competition last year, which landed them a partnership with the Swiss robotics outfit, which SoftBank acquired for $5.4 billion in October.
The company is now working with a Fortune 100 company in the consumer and product goods sector on a proof of concept.
“For CPG customers, they have a lot of people, they pack different products of their brands into one tray or shelf, the problem is that it changes every day,” Chi said. “Because of that, it’s impossible to have robots in there. It’s not possible to reprogram these robots, there are still a lot of humans doing the work.”
Embody expects to begin deploying more of its software in 2026.
“We want to build something that works, that can actually be deployed,” Chi said. “We’re not a research lab; we don’t want to be a research lab in that regard. We want to put something into production that will work reliably.”
If you want to hear first-hand from Embody, and see dozens of additional pitches, participate in valuable workshops, and build relationships that drive business results, To learn more about this year’s disruption, go hereHeld in San Francisco from 27 to 29 October.
