🔓 Remix Reality Insider: AI is Dead, Long Live Physical AI

Your premium drop on the systems, machines, and forces reshaping reality.

🛰️ The Signal

This week’s defining shift.

AI is outgrowing the screen and reaching into our world, ushering in the era of Physical AI.

The next chapter of computing won’t stay inside your computer or hover in the cloud. It will exist in the physical world, built into the tools we use today and the new devices of tomorrow. This isn’t science fiction. It’s the rise of embodied intelligence where technology becomes part of the world itself. And it has already started. We are seeing it show up across sectors, including consumer devices, cars, and factories.

This week’s news surfaced signals like these:

• Amazon introduced its latest warehouse robot Blue Jay and new AI-powered delivery glasses, extending its push into physical AI from factory floors to last-mile delivery.
• GM revealed its NVIDIA Thor-powered vehicle platform that connects propulsion, safety, and infotainment through a unified AI system. Along with the company’s new cobots and hands-free driving features, GM is signaling a shift toward cars designed and built for the physical AI era.
• HONOR teased the Robot Phone, a smartphone with a robotic, gimbal-mounted camera that sees and understands its surroundings. It marks the biggest shift in smartphone design we’ve seen yet, signaling how the physical AI era will reshape personal devices.
• Gartner named Physical AI a top strategic technology trend for 2026, defining it as intelligence that senses, decides, and acts in the real world. The firm says this shift will boost productivity while redefining how humans and machines work together.

Why this matters: The rise of physical AI marks a shift as big as the smartphone or the internet. Machines are moving from reaction to perception, from automation to awareness. This is the next massive opportunity, and it’s already underway. The companies that understand it early will not only shape how intelligence takes form in the real world but also reap the reward early.

🧠 Reality Decoded

Your premium deep dive.

This week, we welcome our newest Remix Reality contributor, Richard Pallardy, a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Science Magazine, National Geographic, Discover, and The Economist.

In his first article, Precision Agriculture Promises More Sustainable Farms, If the Tech Can Deliver, Richard explores how visual AI and robotics are driving a quiet revolution on the farm.

Here are a few key points from his article:

• Spatial intelligence: Precision agriculture uses spatial and temporal data to manage crops and resources more efficiently, bringing new precision to how fields are monitored and managed.
• Sustainability gains: These systems can reduce chemical use and water waste by targeting exactly where and when to act, creating more efficient and sustainable farms.
• Automation advantage: Robotics and automation aim to fill growing labor gaps and perform repetitive and dangerous tasks with accuracy and consistency.
• Field reality check: Real-world conditions still limit performance, with systems that work in labs often struggling against unpredictable weather, soil, and lighting when they get into the field.
• Data divide: Data ownership and accessibility remain unresolved, raising questions about who benefits from AI-driven agriculture and how smaller farms can participate as the technology scales.

Key Takeaway:
Precision agriculture shows how physical AI can make farming more efficient and sustainable, but it still needs to prove it works reliably in real fields and that the data stays in farmers’ hands.

📡 Weekly Radar

Your weekly scan across the spatial computing stack.

🚗 Waymo Begins Testing at Newark Airport as Service Footprint Widens

• Waymo has started manual testing at Newark Liberty International Airport through a new collaboration with The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
• Why this matters: Airport travel is steady, high-frequency, and high-volume, exactly the kind of predictable demand that plays to robotaxis’ strengths. If autonomy can win airports, it's a big opportunity.

🚕 Avride Lands $375M for Robotaxi and Delivery Robot Expansion with Uber, Nebius

• Avride will expand its robotaxi and delivery operations through a multiyear Uber partnership, with Dallas launches planned by the end of 2025.
• Why this matters: Uber’s investment signals deeper conviction in Avride’s autonomous roadmap and reflects growing alignment on long-term autonomy bets.

❤️ Cartwheel Robotics’ Yogi Aims to Make Robots Feel Human

• Cartwheel Robotics is developing Yogi, a companion humanoid robot designed to bring emotional presence and practical support into everyday spaces.
• Why this matters: While most are busy building robots that mimic human movement, Cartwheel’s going after something deeper, an emotional connection. Yogi’s not just a machine that moves. It’s a presence you’re meant to feel.

🤖 AeiROBOT and Advantech Unveil Alice, a Semi-Humanoid Industrial Robot

• AeiROBOT launched the Alice M1, a semi-humanoid industrial robot powered by Advantech's AFE-R360 edge computing board.
• Why this matters: Advantech’s platform combines low-power computing with wide sensor support, helping robots like Alice work reliably in complex, sensor-heavy environments.

✈️ First Air Ambulance Operator in the Americas Adopts VR Simulator for Pilot Training

• PHI Air Medical is now training pilots with Loft Dynamics’ full-motion VR system, marking a shift from traditional simulators.
• Why this matters: VR is enabling training that real life can’t. For air medical crews, that means safely practicing rare, high-risk missions that are too dangerous or unpredictable to stage any other way.

🎮 Odders Lab Gets Funding to Focus on Smartglasses and AR

• Odders Lab announces it has secured funding of an undisclosed amount from CaixaBank’s DayOne and Axon Partners Group.
• Why this matters: Odders’ expanded focus on smartglasses and AR signals that the consumer opportunity for headworn content is no longer limited to headsets. It now extends to an emerging class of devices that may offer even greater potential with consumers, thanks to their all-day wearability.

🎥 World Labs Debuts RTFM, a Real-Time Generative World Model

• RTFM is a real-time generative World Model that creates interactive 3D video from a single image or video input.
• Why this matters: RTFM moves away from scanned geometry like Gaussian splats and photogrammetry, using interactive video to generate worlds on the fly. It’s a different approach to world modeling that opens up opportunities to create persistent, interactive worlds without ever scanning them. This is helpful, especially for worlds that do not exist.

📊 Cognitive3D Brings Enterprise-Grade XR Analytics to the Browser

• New SDK enables detailed session tracking, gaze capture, and performance metrics for WebXR content.
• Why this matters: Cognitive3D lets web developers move beyond traditional 2D analytics to capture data unique to immersive experiences. This can unlock insights that can elevate their games and businesses to the next level.

🏠 Pillsbury Doughboy Turns 60 With First AR Home Tour and Merch Drop

• Pillsbury launched an AR experience that lets fans explore the Doughboy’s home for his 60th birthday.
• Why this matters: Taking a 60-year-old brand and making it feel fresh through augmented reality shows how legacy icons like the Doughboy can find new life in the next wave of computing.

🌀 Tom's Take

Unfiltered POV from the editor-in-chief.

When Kohler unveiled its Dekoda smart toilet camera this week, the internet lost its mind, and I get it. A camera hooked on the side of your porcelain throne in a room designed for complete privacy is unnerving. A sensor for your #2s was an easy target, and many online took the bait. But the outrage points to something deeper. We still haven’t agreed on what it means to live in a world surrounded by sensors.

Every new wave of computing tests our boundaries. The smartphone put a connected camera in every hand. Smart speakers put microphones in every room. Now, Physical AI wants to put perception (sensors + AI) into everything around us. And the hard truth is, for this next technological shift to work, we need computers to see, hear, and understand the physical world, and to do that, it will require a bunch of cameras and sensors everywhere. That’s what makes AI “physical.”

The rub is that the same sensors that enable embodied intelligence also challenge our most basic expectations of privacy. A camera that can help a robot navigate our kitchen or a doorbell that identifies our missing dog is, technically, the same tool that can watch us without consent. And on top of it, we are not the only ones with access to that data, nor often have complete insight into how it is being used.

We’re entering a moment that demands a new social contract for Physical AI. This one needs to define how much visibility we are willing to give our tech in trade for utility, safety, or care. Social contracts require much more than regulation and governance frameworks. They are built on trust, which can only be earned through a system grounded in human-centric design and consent, and consistently demonstrated benefits that far outweigh the risks.

Physical AI will only scale if people trust the systems sensing their world. Kohler’s toilet camera feels creepy today, but if we want to benefit from AI living in our surroundings, the real work ahead isn’t in the hardware or software. It’s in making devices like these feel safe, normal, and necessary.

🔮 What’s Next

3 signals pointing to what’s coming next.

1. Android XR makes its debut with Galaxy XR
   Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset marks the debut of Android XR, a platform co-developed with Google and Qualcomm that brings Gemini AI to mixed reality. Launching alongside the new hardware are Unity’s Android XR developer tools, which enable developers to build content for the Android XR ecosystem. Google and Samsung now challenge Meta and Apple, who both have mixed reality headsets in the market.
2. Physical AI is taking on real work
   Dexory raised $165 million to expand its autonomous warehouse robots that scan inventory and create real-time digital twins of logistics facilities, while Armstrong secured $12 million to scale its AI-powered dishwashing robots in major restaurant chains. Both companies are proving that embodied intelligence can deliver measurable ROI by taking on repetitive, high-turnover tasks across supply chains and service industries.
3. Robotaxis find a road into Europe
   We saw significant movement in the robotaxi space in Europe this week. Pony.ai and Stellantis are partnering to deploy Level 4 self-driving vans across Europe, beginning testing in Luxembourg, while Baidu's Apollo Go and PostBus plan to launch the AmiGo autonomous ride service in Switzerland by 2027. With established automakers, transit agencies, and regulators now backing commercial deployments, Europe is emerging as a major stage for autonomous mobility.

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