Embodied AI Drives Humanoid Robots Toward Deployment

Researchers at MIT, Boston Dynamics and several startups report faster progress in humanoid robots driven by embodied AI as of early 2026. Venture funding rose from $42.6 million in 2020 to nearly $2.8 billion in 2025, and Morgan Stanley projects 900,000 humanoids by 2030; however, companies including Tesla, Figure AI and X1 still face dexterity, autonomy and deployment gaps.