Carolina Parada and the team have delivered Gemini Robotics, Google DeepMind's vision-language-action (VLA) foundation model. Gemini Robotics provides the general-purpose 'understanding' enabling robots to go from pixel to action.

How do you teach a machine to understand the physical world well enough to move through it, manipulate it, and help people in it, when every case is a corner case, never experienced in training?

Embodied AI. AI with arms and legs and the ability to interact with the real world. Gemini Robotics is designed to generalize across platforms, so it works for robots that walk, roll, fly, and swim, with any end-effector, be it a hand, gripper, pincher, or suction cup. Gemini Robotics is designed to generalize across tasks and skills to respond to just about any request that the robot receives.

I sat down with Carolina to explore Google DeepMind's approach to embodied AI at the Humanoids Summit 2025, hosted and organized by ALM Ventures at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Carolina has been working on teaching machines to recognize and respond to the environment in more human-centric ways, starting with speech and voice, then computer vision, and now robotics.

At the heart of her work is Gemini Robotics, a foundation model that takes the multimodal reasoning capabilities of Gemini and extends them into the physical world. It's a VLA, vision-language-action, model. Going beyond "how many cars are in this image?" to "dunk the ball" when playing with a basketball toy. Embodiment-agnostic, it can adapt to control any robot: manipulators, mobile platforms, and the quickly developing humanoids.

Data, Constitutional AI, teleoperation, video training, good candidates for the top concepts covered. But what impressed me more was her description of bringing new people in to experience the robots, inevitably asking the robots to do things they've never heard before, or interacting in Japanese or another language, only to have the robot respond appropriately, creating 'delight, surprise, and joy.'

That is a robot future I can get excited about.

Please join me in welcoming Carolina Parada to Turn the Lens, in collaboration with Humanoids Summit and ALM Ventures.

This interview is a collaboration between Turn the Lens and Humanoids Summit, and was conducted at the Humanoids Summit SV, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, December 12, 2025. Humanoids Summit is organized and hosted by ALM Ventures

Carolina Parada: Embodied AI, Gemini Robotics, Delightful Surprise | Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick Ep 44

Learn more about Humanoids Summit at
http://www.humanoidssummit.com

YouTube
https://youtu.be/BUH1CysZX6A

Trancripit and Show Notes

Welcome back.

The world has changed quite a bit since we launched Turn the Lens. And in 2025, my new episode frequency was not as high as I'd like. For a bunch of reasons, some in my control and some not, I haven't been as consistent as I want to be. And I know consistency matters. I appreciate it in the creators I follow, it matters to me, and it matters to you, our community.

My commitment for 2026: More. More frequent, more consistent, more solo segments, same interesting guests and topics. More Turn the Lens.

Part of that means new tools. Not only desktop tools like Claude and Gemini, but also embodied AI tools like the autonomous drone I used to film this episode. It means getting out of the studio more. And it means more collaborations around the events and conversations that matter.

We're excited to announce a collaboration with Humanoids Summit. Over the next few weeks, we'll be releasing ten interviews with some of the leading minds working on humanoid robotics and embodied AI.

So thanks for sticking around. Thanks for reaching out and connecting—it means a lot. Get ready for more topics, more guests, and more conversations about the trends that matter. Not just the headlines, but why these developments actually matter to you and me, our kids, and future generations.

That's what Turn the Lens has always been about.

Important work to do. Let's get back to it.

Welcome Back: New Technology, Horizon Explorations, Human Lens | Turn the Lens podcast with Jeff Frick, Ep43

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P8kRL_Px1I&list=PLZURvMqWbYjk4hbmcR46tNDdXQlrVZgEn

Episode page with transcript and extensive show notes:
https://www.turnthelenspodcast.com/episode/welcome-back-new-technology-horizon-explorations-human-lens-turn-the-lens-ep43

Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, has been at the forefront of robotics research, commercialization, and policy for decades. A self-described "techno-pragmatist," Andra has her pulse on the robotics industry, in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world. Importantly, she is conscious and intentional to try and get ahead of the big issues we face down the road with the societal shifts coming as millions of robots, humanoid and other form factors, populate more of our world and interactions.

Andra is pro RoboTopia, and against an AI apocalypse. And robotics offers an insight into the world of AI, as they are AI with arms and legs, removed from the black box behind the screen, but out among us, where the consequences of a hallucination or miscalculation can have physical implications. Industrial robots were behind barricades and safely screens. Next gen Humanoids will work in homes, senior care facilities, factories, and other places with direct interaction with people.

Andra is a frequent industry speaker, and in fact, we've shared a few panels together over the years, but this is the first time she's visited Turn The Lens so we could really get into it without restrictions.

And the timing couldn't be better. Humanoid robots are having their moment. Figure just raised a $1B Series C, with a $39B post money valuation. Customers are moving from pilots to commercial engagements. Capacities are compounding at an exponential rate.

Oh Yeah, and did I mention LLMs and their like have transformed the robot training paradigm.

The next great wave of technological change is upon us. Humanoid Robotics, AI with arms, legs, and an ability to navigate the world, and do things.

If you follow no one else, follow Andra to keep up on this part of our rapidly changing world. Subscribe to Robots & Startups on Substack.

Andra Keay: Robo-Pragmatist, Humanoids, Technological Shifts, Laws | Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick, Ep42

#AndraKeay #Humanoids #Robotics #AI #TechnologyShifts #Automation #Ethics #RoboticsLaw #TurnTheLens #JeffFrick #FutureOfWork #Innovation #TechPolicy #Simulation #GenerativeAI #GenAI #RoboticsIndustry #FiveLaws #Society #Interview #Podcast #TurnTheLens

YouTube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp46AO7aC_4&list=PLZURvMqWbYjk4hbmcR46tNDdXQlrVZgEn

Transcript and show notes -

https://www.turnthelenspodcast.com/episode/andra-keay-robo-pragmatist-humanoids-technological-shifts-laws-turn-the-lens-ep42