embodied ai

Robotaxis, trucks and robots, placed by how close each is to paid work with no one aboard.

Embodied AI is software that acts in the physical world: cars that drive themselves, autonomous trucks, delivery robots and humanoids. Demonstrations now work. The harder problem is doing the job reliably, in messy and changing places, at a cost below a human's, with no person standing by. Each company on this map sits somewhere between a demo and a paid service that runs on its own.

The scoreboard is paid driverless work.
Robotaxis are the only area where machines do paid work at scale with no one aboard. Waymo reported 500,000 paid rides a week in March 2026, and Baidu's Apollo Go peaked above 350,000. Trucks, delivery robots and humanoids sit one to three steps lower.
Unit economics are mostly undisclosed.
Few operators report cost per mile or margin per vehicle. One large logistics customer said in August 2026 that its 45 humanoid pilots, across several robot makers, had not yet paid back. The test is who reports margins per machine, not who reports fleet size.
One failure can stall a market.
A system fault stopped Apollo Go vehicles in Wuhan on 31 March 2026, and China paused new robotaxi permits for about three months. In the US, federal rules eased in July 2026. Reliability now sets the pace of regulation.
Models are converging; bodies are not.
Robot foundation models are now sold through APIs, and the same chips and software serve cars and humanoids. Hands, hardware cost and uptime appear to be the limits for general-purpose robots, which remain at the pilot stage.

what would change the view

  • A humanoid maker discloses 1,000 or more units doing paid work at outside customers, outside pilots, with a stated payback period, before end-2027.
  • Waymo or Apollo Go weekly paid rides stall or fall for two consecutive disclosures, or a second fleet-wide stoppage triggers a permit pause in the US or China.
  • An operator reports positive contribution margin per vehicle across three or more cities in audited segment results, which would move the constraint from economics to capital.

map

scoreboard Paid driverless work: rides, loads or tasks that customers paid for, done with no one aboard or standing by. Cumulative miles mix testing and supervised driving; fleet sizes and city counts often include safety drivers; orders and factory plans are not deployments. The cleanest reliability measure, interventions per mile, is not published in a comparable form.

Each company at its October 2026 rung; the grey tail runs back to its estimated position a year earlier. Filled dots: listed company or unit of one; hollow: private. Highlighted: Apollo Go (permit pause April to July 2026) and Zoox (federal exemption allowing paid rides, July 2026). "No one aboard" ignores remote assistance, which every operator uses and none quantifies.

Weekly paid driverless rides as reported, log scale. Waymo's figures are milestones it announced; Apollo Go's are a monthly average and a peak week. The hollow point is Waymo's own end-2026 target, not data. Tesla, Pony.ai, WeRide and Zoox do not report weekly rides.

players

Listed companies whose value depends mainly on embodied autonomy, or business units where it is material. Private companies are included only with paid work for outside customers, or a permit to operate with no one aboard on public roads; orders, memorandums and factory plans do not count. Funding amounts are not shown for anyone. Electric air taxis are left off: their gate is aircraft certification, with a pilot aboard.

Waymounit of Alphabet, Nasdaq: GOOGL
robotaxi · 500,000 paid rides a week (Mar 2026); 14 US cities (Sep 2026). Operates without safety drivers in each of its cities.
Apollo Gounit of Baidu, Nasdaq: BIDU
robotaxi · Weekly fully driverless rides peaked above 350,000 (Mar 2026). 28 cities; a Wuhan stoppage on 31 March 2026 preceded a national permit pause.
Pony.ailisted, Nasdaq: PONY
robotaxi · 1,975 robotaxis (30 Jun 2026). Fully driverless commercial service in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen; targets 3,500 or more vehicles by end-2026.
WeRidelisted, Nasdaq: WRD
robotaxi · More than 1,800 robotaxis (31 Jul 2026). Operates fully driverless service in China and the Middle East.
Teslalisted, Nasdaq: TSLA
robotaxi; humanoid · Paid rides with no safety monitor in Austin, Dallas and Houston (2026). Fleets in each city are small; Optimus production began mid-2026 with no paid outside work disclosed.
Zooxunit of Amazon, Nasdaq: AMZN
robotaxi · Paid rides in Las Vegas (Aug 2026). Purpose-built vehicle with no steering wheel, operating under a federal exemption.
May Mobilityprivate
robotaxi and shuttle · Three driver-out deployments; more than 550,000 commercial trips (Sep 2026). Has agreed to list on Nasdaq through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.
Mobileyelisted, Nasdaq: MBLY
robotaxi system; sensing chips · No operator-free paid service yet. Plans its own US robotaxi service in 2027.
Auroralisted, Nasdaq: AUR
trucking · Driverless trucks hauling paid freight in Texas (2026). Expects more than 200 trucks by early 2027; no cost per mile disclosed.
Kodiak AIlisted, Nasdaq: KDK
trucking · 35 customer-owned driverless trucks (30 Jun 2026). Off-highway work in the Permian Basin; long-haul driverless targeted by end-2026.
Serve Roboticslisted, Nasdaq: SERV
sidewalk delivery · 792 daily active robots (Q2 2026). Robots are remotely supervised rather than escorted.
Agility Roboticsprivate
humanoid · Nine customer facilities; more than 65,000 operating hours (2026). Paid robots-as-a-service at a logistics customer since 2024.
Figure AIprivate
humanoid · Figure 03 in BMW Spartanburg logistics (Jun 2026). Units and terms undisclosed.
UBTechlisted, HKEX: 9880
humanoid · 1,079 full-size humanoids shipped (2025). Sells mainly to Chinese manufacturers.
Unitreelisted, Shanghai STAR Market
humanoid; quadruped · More than 5,500 humanoids shipped (2025). Listed in August 2026; units sold mostly for research, education and entertainment.
Boston Dynamicsunit of Hyundai Motor, KRX: 005380
humanoid · Atlas training at Hyundai's Georgia plant (Jan 2026). Deployment from 2028, parts sequencing first.
Physical Intelligenceprivate
robot foundation models · API opened in beta (13 Oct 2026). Sells models to robot makers; not placed on the ladder.

resources

Our World in Data: driverless taxis in California
Independent chart of monthly driverless passenger miles from state filings.
The Robot Report
Daily trade news on robotics deployments, humanoids and autonomy.
IFR World Robotics
Annual industrial and service robot statistics from the International Federation of Robotics.
NHTSA crash reporting for automated driving
Federal crash reports for automated driving systems, downloadable and updated monthly.

notes

Positions are approximate and reflect editorial judgment, as of 3 November 2026; October 2025 positions are estimates. Ride counts differ in definition (paid or total, peak week or average, fully driverless or mixed), and Tesla reports miles rather than rides. Humanoid shipment figures include research and education units. Not investment advice.