On March 29, 2024, American science fiction and fantasy author Joanna Maciejewska tweeted: I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. The tweet garnered more than 95,000 likes and 3.2 million views. Maciejewska's tweet honed in on a fundamental problem with many of the current crop of AI and robotics start-ups. In trying to make their products more human-like and relatable, they are innovating in the wrong direction.

While most AI start-ups are investing in large language models (LLMs) that mimic human creativity, robotics companies are content to deploy industrial machines in warehouses or labs, impacting both what humans enjoy doing — like making art, music, and literature — and what humans need to survive, like gainful employment.

USA-based Indian innovator Bipasha Sen's Tangible Robots is trying to fill that gap. The Palo Alto-based start-up, co-founded by Sen, is building dexterous, intelligent "commonplace robots" designed to navigate real-world environments — retrieving groceries, tidying countertops, and eventually becoming as ubiquitous as smartphones.

Tangible's stated goal is simple: "put robots in every home", Sen says. Executing on that vision, however, is anything but. Home environments are unpredictable, cluttered, and constantly changing. Tasks like reaching for an apple hidden behind a bowl in a refrigerator or wiping down a sink involve a combination of nuanced spatial perception, physical manipulation, and fast adaptation — challenges that even the most advanced current-gen robots have historically struggled with.

Sen, who has spent over a decade in AI research — starting at Microsoft and later pursuing graduate work in generative modelling and robotic manipulation — believes the timing is ripe for a giant leap forward. Rather than wait for incremental progress in academia or enterprise robotics, she left her PhD program at MIT to focus full-time on Tangible, convinced that domestic robotics represents both the hardest and most meaningful application of the technology today.

"Some of the words that I use to describe the essence of what we are building is transcendental, elevation, and enhancement," Sen says. "I see robots not just doing our menial tasks, I see robots as a means to augment our physical world like AR/VR once promised."

What sets Tangible apart from other AI/robotics start-ups is its focus on solving for real-world dexterity and machine learning at scale. Tangible is investing heavily in teleoperation, control systems, and hardware-software co-design. But the bigger bet is on data.

"The biggest challenge that any robotic company needs to solve is, how can we collect trillions of hours of robot data that is relevant for the underlying policy?" Sen explains. "That is where we put a lot of thoughts and efforts on and are innovating in this space to improve & enhance data acquisition".

Tangible is building novel pipelines to acquire that data in ways that are cost-efficient, scalable, and deeply grounded in the practical realities of home use. While many robotics efforts focus on narrow tasks or single-purpose automation in industrial settings, Tangible is positioning itself as a platform company — one that can eventually support a broad spectrum of domestic applications. There's a philosophical underpinning to this as well. For Sen and her co-founders, the long-term goal isn't just about outsourcing domestic chores; it's about reshaping the relationship between humans and machines. For Sen and her motley crew of dreamers and innovators, commonplace robots represent physical extensions of the human world — machines that enhance human productivity instead of replacing humans.

It remains to be seen how much of this dream Sen will be able to realise. Still in early development, Tangible Robots is currently prototyping in stealth and hosting private demos for investors and partners. If successful, the company could usher in a new era of embodied AI: the kind that doesn't just live in the cloud, but in the kitchen, the hallway, and the living room.

To learn more, follow Tangible Robots here.

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