Boston Dynamics shows Atlas humanoid working at Georgia Hyundai plant

Last night on 60 Minutes, Boston Dynamics Inc. demonstrated how artificial intelligence is enabling its Atlas robot to conduct tasks at new factory of parent company Hyundai Motor Group near Savannah, Ga.

The market for humanoids could reach $38 billion by 2035, predicted Goldman Sachs. As much as $4.6 billion was invested in humanoid developers in 2025, reported Forbes.

CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker visited the new plant and Boston Dynamics’ headquarters in Waltham, Mass. He observed that while the company is working toward superhuman capabilities, Atlas and other humanoids are not yet at the point of mass deployment.

Boston Dynamics, whose Spot quadrupeds are already in commercial deployments for facilities maintenance, quality inspection, and security, is a leader in the humanoid race. Whitaker noted that it faces stiff competition, particularly from numerous startups with state funding in China.

“The Chinese government has a mission to win the robotics race,” said Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics. “Technically, I believe we remain in the lead. But there’s a real threat there that — simply through the scale of investment — we could fall behind.”

Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group for $880 million in 2021 and said in April 2025 that it plans to deploy tens of thousands of its robots.

Boston Dynamics continues refining Atlas

When 60 Minutes visited Boston Dynamics in 2021, Atlas used hydraulics and was impressively agile for the time, but not yet capable of fine manipulation.

Since then, the company has released an electric version of the robot (which won a 2025 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award) and developed a three-fingered gripper with tactile sensing. Atlas can stand using the full rotational abilities of its joints, which don’t have wires like other robots that could impede that range of motion.

Rather than have humans program them with algorithms, Atlas and other AI robots learn through teleoperation and simulation.

“If that teleoperator can perform the task that we want the robot to do, and do it multiple times, that generates data that we can use to train the robot’s AI models to then later do that task autonomously,” explained Scott Kuindersma, vice president of robotics research at Boston Dynamics (who was also a recent guest on The Robot Report Podcast).

Whitaker tried on a motion-capture suit to teach Atlas to do jumping jacks, walk, and gesture as he did. The data from that session trained 4,000 virtual robots in six hours. In addition, Boston Dynamics uses NVIDIA‘s AI processors and GR00T framework to help its systems understand the real world.

When the 5 ft., 9 in. (1.75 m) tall and 200 lb. (90.7 kg) robot fell while trying to do a duck walk, it revealed safety concerns around humanoids. Kuindersma noted, “We love when things like this happen, actually. Because it’s often an opportunity to understand something we didn’t know about the system.”

Spot demonstrated its dance moves and a similar learning process on America’s Got Talent last year.

While no humanoid can yet put on clothes or pour a cup of coffee and walk with it, Kuindersma said the path toward such capabilities is now clear.

Hyundai plans to use and show more robots

Hyundai’s new automotive plant in Georgia employs nearly 1,500 people and uses more than 1,000 industrial robots, but there is still room for more automation. 60 Minutes showed workers watching as Atlas practiced sorting roof racks without human help.

This was the first time Atlas has been out of the laboratory doing real work, Zack Jackowski, general manager for Atlas at Boston Dynamics, told Whitaker. Hyundai last April said it plans to buy “tens of thousands” of robots from the company.

“I think we are on track about the development of Atlas. So far, it’s very successful,” said Heung-soo Kim, head of global strategy at the South Korean manufacturer. “It’s a kind of the start of great journey.”

Playter acknowledged that the nature of work will change with humanoid robots, which should take over repetitive or dangerous tasks. They first have to be made reliable and affordable, he said.

“But these robots are not so autonomous that they don’t need to be managed,” noted Playter. “They need to be built. They need to be trained. They need to be serviced.”

Hyundai plans to discuss its AI robotics strategy and show Atlas publicly for the first time at CES in Las Vegas today, and The Robot Report will be there to cover it.

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