Gen 1
150 000 USD
Persona AI
A Houston-built, teleoperated industrial humanoid from Persona AI, purpose-built for welding in shipyards and steel plants, led by a former NASA Robonaut engineer and backed by a partnership with HD Hyundai.
Skill Score
3
Specifications and details:
| Availability | Prototype |
|---|---|
| Nationality | US |
| Website | https://persona.ai/ |
| Degrees of freedom, overall | 32 |
| Degrees of freedom, hands | 20 |
| Height [cm] | 175 |
| Max speed (km/h) | 5 |
| Strength [kg] | 20 |
| Weight [kg] | 70 |
| Runtime pr charge (hours) | 4 |
| Safe with humans | Yes |
| CPU/GPU | NVIDIA Jetson Thor-class compute (estimate) |
| Ingress protection | N/A |
| Camera resolution | N/A |
| Connectivity | Ethernet, WiFi |
| Operating system | N/A |
| LLM integration | Yes |
| Latency glass to action | 150–250 ms |
| Motor tech | Electric BLDC actuators |
| Gear tech | Harmonic drive reducers |
| Main structural material | Aluminum alloy frame |
| Number of fingers | 5 per hand |
| Main market | heavy industry |
| Walking Speed [km/h] | 3 |
| Color | Grey |
| Manufacturer | Persona AI |
Description
Persona AI is a Houston-based robotics startup founded in 2024. Nic Radford leads the company as CEO, drawing on 15 years of NASA robotics experience. His co-founders bring equally deep credentials, including Figure AI’s former CTO and a veteran of Nauticus Robotics. Since all three come from serious engineering backgrounds, Persona AI builds robots for tough industrial work rather than consumer novelty.
Unlike many humanoid startups chasing warehouses or households, Persona AI targets heavy industry directly. Shipyards, steel plants, and energy facilities all face the same problem: not enough skilled workers for dangerous, physically demanding jobs. Persona AI’s humanoid focuses first on welding, a task that badly needs both precision and endurance. Because welding shortages hit shipbuilding especially hard, the company partnered with HD Hyundai, the world’s largest shipbuilder.
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Today’s Gen 1 humanoid still relies on human teleoperators guiding its movements. Operators steer the robot through real welding tasks, and every session generates data for training future autonomy. This approach lets Persona AI collect authentic, high-value industrial data instead of relying purely on simulation. Meanwhile, the company has already begun live trials at a Louisiana steel plant, pushing the robot beyond its original shipyard focus.
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Persona AI also teamed up with Under Armour to test rugged materials that can protect robots in harsh conditions. This partnership reflects a broader design philosophy: form and durability matter just as much as raw capability. Rather than selling hardware outright, Persona AI offers its robots through a robotics-as-a-service model. As a result, industrial clients gain humanoid labor without a massive upfront investment.
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Website: persona.ai
