Physical AI startup Autonomique is moving its adaptable factory robots from pilot to production at F&P Manufacturing, a Tier 1 automotive supplier in Canada, in a deployment the company says shows physical AI can meet the zero-tolerance demands of just-in-time car-parts production.
An intelligence layer for industrial robots
Spun out of SRI International in 2024 and based in Menlo Park, California, Autonomique builds hardware-agnostic software that adds human-like dexterity and reasoning to existing industrial robots. "There is enormous excitement in robotics today, but most of it remains demo-grade: systems that look impressive yet routinely fail under real production demands," said co-founder and CEO Vikrant Tomar, who previously founded Fluent.ai. "Manufacturing demands precision, repeatability, and zero tolerance for fragility. We built Autonomique to close that gap."
A 'generalist-specialist' approach
Rather than relying on a single large vision-language-action model, Autonomique uses what it calls a generalist-specialist architecture. A generalist AI chooses the right skill for each task on the fly, drawing on deterministic routines, online reinforcement learning, or newer VLA models depending on the situation. The platform is also agnostic to grippers and embodiments, working today with arms from Denso, Staubli and RealMan Robotics, so each deployment becomes a blueprint for scaling across additional tasks, lines and sites in automotive, electronics and aerospace manufacturing.
From paid pilot to global rollout
F&P Manufacturing, based in Tottenham, Ontario, makes chassis and suspension systems for Honda, Toyota and General Motors and is a subsidiary of Japan-based F.tech Inc. The collaboration began in late 2025 with a paid pilot in which a bi-manual wheeled robot picked parts precisely from multiple bins, observed a press machine and its surroundings at 10 hertz, and placed finished parts into bins. "Every part that this robot is creating will go in a car from a large OEM within the next four hours," Tomar noted, citing an 18-month return on investment versus the industry's typical 24 to 36 months. F&P general manager Luis Mideros said Autonomique "stood out for delivering both the flexibility of a generalist system and the precision our lines demand" as the supplier scales toward full production across its global operations.
Backed by automation veterans
Autonomique's round was led by White Star Capital, with Garage Capital, iNovia Capital and the Innovobot IRV Fund, plus angel backing from Clearpath Robotics and OTTO Motors co-founders Ryan Gariepy, Matt Rendall and Bryan Webb. The deployment lands amid a broader wave of physical AI reaching the factory floor, alongside efforts such as Sanctuary AI's Tier 1 automotive validation, Built Robotics' construction physical-AI work, and PSYONIC and ABB's dexterity partnership.
Reporting based on coverage from The Robot Report and Autonomique.