Mentee Robotics wasn't exactly stealth. The Israeli company rode a small wave of press at the end of 2022 after the initial announcement of Tesla's humanoid robot. It was the year of the startup's founding, so there wasn't much that stood out at the time. Still, the company made some headlines after its co-founder and chairman, Amnon Shashua, joined forces with Mobileye to form a well-funded AI company, AI21 Labs.
But on Wednesday, the company offered a glimpse of Menteebot, a unique take on the rapidly growing humanoid category. In its current form, this system represents a dramatically different approach than other systems on the market. In fact, this is one of the places where the exact definition of what constitutes a humanoid system is ambiguous.
It's worth noting that most of the robots on display are prototypes, but after two years in secrecy, the creators believe they've made enough progress to be released to the public. Given Shashua's history, Menteebot will predictably center around two things: computer vision and generative AI.
“We are at the culmination of the convergence of computer vision, natural language understanding, powerful and detailed simulators, and methodologies for moving from simulation to the real world,” the founders said in a release. “At Mentee Robotics, we believe this convergence is the starting point for designing future general-purpose bipedal robots, which can use their brains to move anywhere (like humans) and do chores. and learn through imitation tasks for which they were previously untrained.”
Image credit: Mentee Robotics
Without a doubt, perception and reasoning are the two key pillars driving the evolution of this category, and Mentee has a lot going for it when it comes to lineage. In addition to Shashua, the founding team includes Lior Wolf, CEO and former Facebook AI research director, and Shai Sharef-Schwartz, professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and current Mobileye CTO. Part of that team has helped the company raise $17 million to date, led by Aalen Innovation Capital.
Mentee appears to be casting a very wide net, initially looking at both the industrial and residential markets. Manufacturers of humanoids will usually say that home is somewhere far down the roadmap. Given the need for additional labor, the fact that they have deeper pockets than most consumers, and the more structured environment that industrial environments offer, warehouses and factories will be your first destination.
For now, the company is showcasing how its AI models can help systems handle tasks.
Mentee notes:
Transformer-based large language models (LLMs) are used to interpret commands and “think through” the steps required to complete a task. Emphasis is placed on the ability to integrate locomotion and dexterity, i.e. the robot's ability to dynamically balance when carrying weights or reaching.
Mentee plans to release a production-ready prototype towards the beginning of 2025.