Gemini Robotics 2 Controls Humanoid Robots Feet to Fingertips
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Gemini Robotics 2 now supports 'whole-body motions' on humanoid robots, expanding from the previous version's upper-body focus to control motion from 'feet to fingertips'.
- Apptronik's Apollo 2 robot demonstrates the new capabilities in Google videos, bending to pick up a watering can and retrieving specific items from shelves.
- Gemini Robotics 2 gains five-fingered hand dexterity, letting robots seal a Ziploc bag, tie a trash bag, and unscrew a lightbulb.
- Gemini Robotics ER 2 (embodied reasoning) is upgraded to track when tasks begin and end, coordinate multi-robot teams — one video shows Apollo 2 directing Google's dual-arm robot to clean a garage.
- Google DeepMind calls ER 2 its 'safest robotics model to date,' citing improved human detection and automatic safe-stop triggers when people approach.
- The On-Device Gemini Robotics Model can now adapt faster to new robot embodiments with drastically different shapes, sensors, and degrees of freedom, running without an internet connection.
Why it matters: By giving one AI model control of full humanoid bodies plus multi-robot coordination and safety cutoffs, DeepMind moves from single-arm demos toward factory and home workflows that require legs, grippers, and spatial reasoning working in tandem — and ER 2's safe-stop feature directly addresses the human-proximity risks that have stalled real-world humanoid deployments.
