Intrinsic: Google’s new company to build software for industrial robots

Google’s parent company Alphabet announced a new company called Intrinsic. The company focuses on building software for industrial robots. This will help Alphabet focus on new technology like self-driving cars (Waymo), delivery drones (Wing), health care and biotech (Verily), etc.

What is Google’s Intrinsic all about?

Wendy Tan White, Google’s new CEO shared the details about the company’s aims in a blog post. White is now leading the new Alphabet company. The firm is working towards unlocking the economic and creative potential of industrial robots for entrepreneurs, developers and, other companies. 

The company will make products easier to use. It will be more flexible and less costly in the long run and unlock several new tools that are sustainable. “Over the last few years, our team has been exploring how to give industrial robots the ability to sense, learn, and automatically make adjustments as they’re completing tasks. So they work in a wider range of settings and applications,” said Tan White, in her blog post.

Replicant: Google’s previous attempt

Google bought several robot companies in 2013. It bought Shaft, a Japanese company making bipedal bots, Bot and Dolly, a viral video bot, and many more. This effort was called Replicant and headed by Andy Rubin. Rubin is also the co-founder of the Android mobile OS. However, it failed and, Google has either shut down operations or sold the company. It is because robots are difficult to make and not profitable. Additionally, it was hushed after Rubin departed from the company due to sexual misconduct.

Additionally, Google announced the ‘Everyday Robot Project’ in 2019. It helped the company develop a general robot for learning purposes. However, the current status of the project is not clear. The homepage looks unchanged since 2019. But, we hope that this new project will stay around longer in the Google umbrella.