Figure AI Robot vs Human in Package Sorting: Human Narrowly Wins, CEO Says It's the Last Time

US robotics startup Figure AI recently held a package sorting contest, pitting its robot against intern Aimee Gérard for 10 hours. Valued at $39 billion, the company had been live-streaming robot package sorting at its San Jose headquarters for a week, attracting millions of viewers.

During the contest, Gérard led early but was overtaken by the robot when he took a short break due to physical limits. He finally won narrowly with 12924 packages vs the robot's 12732, with an average time of 2.79 seconds per package vs the robot's 2.83 seconds. CEO Brett Adcock said this was the last time humans would win such a contest, as the test aimed to show robots could operate stably 24/7.

Ohio State University expert Ayanna Howard noted that robots have issues like incorrect barcode placement and dropping packages, so the technology isn't ready for commercial use yet—there's still a long way to go to deploy fully automated sorting robots in logistics centers.