Atlas the Boston Dynamics robot leaves the laboratory.

The move occurs at a crucial moment. For years, humanoid robberies seemed more impressive demonstrations than real tools, but that is changing quickly, Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot is one of those that left the laboratory and began working in the real world, in this case the new Atlas inside a Hyundai car factory in the United States. The demonstration was shown on CBS' 60 Minutes directly from Hyundai's new factory near Sabana in the state of Georgia, where Boston Dynamics showed how artificial intelligence is allowing Atlas to execute real industrial tasks in an environment where errors cost time, money and safety.

The most important thing is how you learn. According to Goldman Sex, the humanoid robo market can reach $38 billion by 2035. In 2025 alone, investors have already placed $4.6 billion in companies developing this type of robot. When 60 Minutes visited Boston Dynamics in 2021, Atlas was still hydraulic, extremely agile, but unable to perform precise manipulations, today it is completely electric and gained hands with tactile sensors capable of sensing the environment. Unlike some other humanoid models, Atlas does not have internal cables that transmit its movements, its joints rotate freely, allowing it to stand, balance and manipulate objects in ways that resemble, even surpass human biomechanics, the most important thing is how it learns, instead of being programmed line by line, Atlas is trained by teleoperation and simulation. A human executes the task remotely, the data is collected and used to train artificial intelligence models, in just 6 hours, a motion capture session generated training equivalent to 4000 virtual robots. Boston Dynamics uses Nvidia AI chips and the Gro framework to help Atlas understand the physical world, and when it falls or fails, as it did when trying to imitate a duck's walk, that's not seen as a failure, but as learning. At Hyundai's factory, Atlas was shown sorting roof racks, while human workers looked on. According to the company, it was the first time the robot performed a real task outside of the testing environment.