OpenAI Disbands Standalone Robotics Team

What happened

Fortune reporter Wen Shao reported exclusively on November 13 that OpenAI has disbanded its standalone robotics team. The company had registered a booth at the Conference on Robot Learning in Austin that week; when Fortune's reporter visited, booth #208 was empty. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the reorganization to Fortune.

Under the new arrangement, robotics researchers join the main research team under Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, while applied robotics and hardware staff move into the larger Applied organization under President Greg Brockman. OpenAI's reasoning is that general-purpose models such as GPT-6 Astra can now be applied to robots directly, so a separate team building robot-specific models is no longer the fastest path.

The evidence OpenAI points to comes from a study Nvidia ran on October 14: GPT-6 Astra scored 74.8% on RoboLab-120, a simulated pick-and-place benchmark, against 51.0% for the best dedicated robot model, Lakeside. The benchmark is simulated, not a physical robot test. OpenAI has published no blog post about the change and has not said how many people were affected.

Key facts

1. What changed: The standalone robotics team no longer exists; researchers report to Chief Research Officer Mark Chen in the main research team, and applied robotics and hardware staff report to President Greg Brockman in Applied.
2. Stated reason: OpenAI said general-purpose models such as GPT-6 Astra can now control robots directly, so a separate robotics model team is no longer the fastest way to move.
3. Supporting numbers: In an Nvidia study on October 14, GPT-6 Astra scored 74.8% on RoboLab-120, a simulated manipulation benchmark, against 51.0% for the best specialized model, Lakeside; the benchmark is simulated, not a physical robot test.
4. Unchanged target: A spokesperson said robotics remains a core part of OpenAI's long-term vision, and a first public demonstration of its own humanoid robot is still targeted for 2027.
5. Not disclosed: OpenAI has not said how many people were affected and has published no blog post about the change.
6. Team history: OpenAI wound down its first robotics team in 2020, rebuilt a standalone team in 2024 and partnered with Figure on humanoid robots; that partnership ended in February 2025.