Standard Bots is building and training robots to think for themselves with artificial intelligence — and it could bring more manufacturing to the US in the process.
The Long Island-based company is early to apply AI to robotics and one of the first to do it for commercial purposes rather than conducting academic research.
“We’re making tools so that anyone can use this robot for their business by showing the robot what they want it to do through hand-held training devices,” founder and CEO Evan Beard told The Post.
Instead of writing long lines of code, AI allows robots to learn a task — like pouring a soda into a cup — from humans by capturing the motion through cameras and mirroring it. Unlike traditional autonomous robots that perform a rote move, AI-powered robots “understand” their environment and adapt.
For instance, a Standard Bots AI robot can see if the soda can has been moved and pick it up from the new spot.
“ChatGPT gave AI language, and robotics is giving AI a body,” said Randy Howie, who helped start the New York Robotics Network, a nonprofit advancing robotics in NYC. “Robotics didn’t advance nearly as quickly as software over the last 30 years … but, now, with the intersection of AI and robotics, a new frontier has opened up where robots are smart and can learn. [They are] able to figure out their environments and reason through them. Standard Bots is leading the commercialization of AI and robotics on that frontier.”
Practically speaking, Beard believes this means robots may be smart enough to fill manufacturing jobs or wash dishes in restaurants in the next five years.
This focus on real-world applications is part of the reason that companies including Amazon and Samsung injected $63 million into Standard Bots this summer.
Contrary to dystopian fears of robots taking human jobs, Beard said the initial application is to help companies that already automate manufacturing make it more efficient and affordable. And that should make it more appealing for companies to bringing supply chains back to the US.
“If we can automate a lot of the production, we can actually bring jobs back to this country and we can compete on price,” Beard explained. “We see from both presidential candidates right now the importance of having manufacturing here … It can improve national security. It’s better for the environment [and] slashes our transport costs and the cost of food.”
Having major corporate backing is a dramatic leap from 2017, when Beard, 37, and his co-founder began tinkering around with robots in his apartment. But they struggled to raise money and Beard poured the last of his personal savings into Standard Bots before its first outside cash infusion came in just days before the coronavirus lockdown in 2020.
One of the reasons robotics has been slower to develop than other software technologies is because it’s “multidisciplinary.”
But Beard’s background — he studied computer science at Duke and was accepted into the exclusive incubator Y Combinator to launch a software company — bridges the gap to bring software and hardware together.
“You have to have folks who are good at electronics, good at hardware, good at manufacturing and great at software … There’s so many different fields you need to bring together,” Beard said. “It just makes it really hard.”
After raising a seed round, Beard was able to move with his children and wife to Glen Cove, Long Island, to open a 8,500 square-foot factory (a second 13,000 square-foot factory is opening in Long Island early next year) later in 2020.
In the next few months, Standard Bots will be ready to sell its new AI robotic “arm” — a product Beard believes is much more efficient than building full humanoid robots — and it will also make its film debut.
Beard and his Bots are featured in A24’s “Babygirl,” in theaters Christmas Day and starring Nicole Kidman as the CEO of a robotic company. While Beard appears in just one scene, his robotics play a starring role. It was the New York Robotics Network that connected Beard with A24, which is based in NYC.
And Beard believes that NYC has helped him strike it lucky.
In the early days of Standard Bots, he would invite venture capitalists and technologists to come by his city apartment to demonstrate the robotics — and ultimately won over some investors that way.
“We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the engineers, and the investors … New York City has the whole ecosystem,” Beard said. “It’s important to be near a hub like that … it creates a lot of serendipity.”
This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.