Applied AI · 6–10 weeks, tailored

Physical AI

Understand embodied AI, robotics, and autonomous systems well enough to evaluate vendor claims and commit capital with confidence.

Robotics and physical AI vendors are selling into an industry that cannot yet evaluate them. Capability claims outrun deployed reality, and the gap is expensive to discover after purchase. This engagement gives your engineering and operations leadership real technical grounding in how these systems perceive, decide, and fail, so you can tell a demo from a deployment.

Why This Practice

What Makes This Different

01

Bridges software and hardware

Perception, sensors, uncertainty, and control, explained for people who have to make capital decisions about them.

02

Grounded in current systems

What is actually deployed and working today, versus what is in a funding announcement.

03

Simulation-first

Reason about sim-to-real gaps before they become commissioning delays.

04

Built for the decision, not the degree

The goal is a defensible investment decision and a realistic deployment plan.

Outcomes

What Your Team Walks Away With

Your Outcome: A team that can evaluate physical AI vendors credibly and scope a deployment that survives contact with your floor.

Working models of embodied AI systems

How perception, planning, and actuation fit together.

Reasoning about sensors and uncertainty

Where these systems are confident and wrong.

Vendor claim evaluation

The questions that separate a real capability from a staged demo.

A scoped opportunity assessment

Where physical AI fits your operation, and where it does not yet.

Request a Capability Assessment
Who This Is For

Built for Organizations That…

Engineering leaders scoping robotics or physical AI initiatives
Operations and manufacturing teams evaluating automation
Teams under pressure to automate without a technical basis for choosing how
Product and strategy leaders who need to speak credibly about physical AI
Anyone who needs real grounding before committing capital
How It Runs

The Engagement, and What You Keep

How the work runs

On-site technical sessions with engineering and operations leadership
Simulation exercises against your process constraints
Vendor proposal review, where proposals exist
Opportunity assessment readout

What your organization owns after

Physical AI opportunity assessment for your operation
Vendor evaluation framework and question set
Deployment risk register
Recommended sequencing for automation investment
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we need a robotics background?

No. The sessions are built for engineering and operations leadership who have to make capital decisions about these systems, not for people who will write control code.

Do we need vendor proposals in hand to start?

No, but they help. Where proposals exist they become the case material and get reviewed directly. Where they do not, we work from your process and constraints to identify where automation is and is not viable yet.

Will we work with physical robots?

The exercises are simulation-based and run against your process constraints, which is exactly where the sim-to-real gap becomes visible. That gap is what turns into commissioning delays on a real floor.

What happens once we decide to deploy?

Security and assurance work for deployed autonomous systems is a separate practice under our sister brand, AgileHippo. We make the handoff explicit rather than folding it into this engagement.

The moment AI has to move a physical object in the real world, the rules change. This engagement teaches you what actually changes and why.Ben Manning
AI That Moves

Commit capital to physical automation with a defensible basis for the decision.

From sensor fusion to simulation, build the judgment physical AI requires.

Start With a Capability Assessment