Embodied Intelligence

Embodied Intelligence, later renamed Covariant, is an American artificial intelligence and robotics company headquartered in Emeryville, California. It was founded in October 2017 by Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, Rocky Duan and Tianhao Zhang to bring modern deep learning techniques to robotics. The company develops AI software — described as "robot brains" — that can be loaded onto existing robot hardware so that machines can learn new, complex skills instead of being explicitly programmed motion by motion. Target applications identified at launch included manipulation of deformable objects such as wires, fabrics, linens, apparel, fluid bags and food; picking parts and order items from cluttered, unstructured bins; and assembly tasks where hard automation struggles due to variability in parts, configurations and order individualization.

Under the Covariant name, the company built the Covariant Brain, AI-driven software powering robotic arms for warehouse work, developed over more than two years following the founders' Berkeley research. From 2018 it began collecting data from 30 variations of robot arms in warehouses worldwide running the Covariant Brain, accumulating a database of billions of units of real-world robotics information. Its commercial offerings include Covariant Brain-powered goods-to-person picking, kitting, depalletization, item induction and order sortation, with robot arms reported to pick and sort items from bins at rates exceeding human performance. On March 11, 2024, the company launched RFM-1 (Robotics Foundation Model 1), a robotics foundation model trained on text, images, videos, robot actions and numerical sensor readings captured by warehouse robots running the Covariant Brain, intended to give robots the ability to reason about and understand their environment.

In August 2024, Amazon announced a non-exclusive license to the company's technology, hired roughly 25% of its workforce, and brought on founders Abbeel, Chen and Duan. A 2025 whistleblower complaint to the FTC, SEC and Department of Justice reported that the agreement was valued at $380 million plus a $20 million final licensing payment due one year after closing, below the $625 million valuation from the company's final 2023 funding round, and characterized the arrangement as a reverse acquihire and the remaining entity as a "zombie company." The company has not published updates to its website, LinkedIn, X or YouTube accounts since August 2024.

Founding story

Pieter Abbeel, director of the Robot Learning Lab at the University of California, Berkeley since 2008 and a professor there, co-founded the company in October 2017 with three of his former Berkeley students: Peter Chen, Rocky Duan and Tianhao Zhang. Abbeel, Chen and Duan had worked together as researchers at OpenAI, spending over a year there advancing deep imitation learning, reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning and learning-to-learn; Zhang was previously a researcher at Microsoft. The founders' stated purpose was to bring an advanced level of robotic automation to factories, warehouses and potentially homes by building software that enables existing robot hardware to handle a wider range of tasks, combining imitation learning and reinforcement learning. The founding team was described as having a combined 30 years of experience in artificial intelligence, deep learning and robotics, building on Berkeley work that included robots that fold laundry, learn simulated locomotion and learn vision-based manipulation from trial and error and human VR teleoperation.

Business model

The company sells AI software that runs on third-party robot hardware, licensing its Covariant Brain platform to warehouse, logistics and manufacturing operators and partnering with robot makers and automation integrators such as ABB and Knapp to deploy Covariant Brain-powered applications. In August 2024 it entered a non-exclusive technology licensing agreement with Amazon, reported at $380 million plus a $20 million final licensing payment.

Revenue derives from deployment and licensing of its AI software layer for robotic applications (picking, kitting, depalletization, item induction, order sortation) to warehouse and logistics operators and automation partners, plus technology licensing to Amazon under the 2024 agreement.

Traction

Data collection from 30 variations of robot arms in warehouses globally beginning in 2018, producing a database of billions of units of real-world robotics information. Named deployments and partnerships include ABB (2020), Knapp at an Obeta warehouse, Radial for robotic order sortation (2023) and Otto Group for item induction (2023). The company reported total funding of $222 million as of April 2023.

Latest developments

On August 30, 2024, Amazon announced a non-exclusive license to the company's technology, the hiring of 25% of its workforce, and the addition of founders Abbeel, Chen and Duan to Amazon; Abbeel joined Amazon in August 2024 and was appointed head of Amazon's large language model efforts within its AGI organization in December 2025. A 2025 whistleblower complaint filed with the FTC, SEC and DOJ stated the deal was worth $380 million with a $20 million final licensing payment due a year after closing, alleged the structure was a reverse acquihire designed to avoid antitrust scrutiny, and described the remaining company as a "zombie company" existing on paper to collect the final payment. No public updates have been posted to the company's website or social accounts since August 2024.