Coco Robotics just made a major play in the physical AI race, launching a dedicated research lab with UCLA professor Bolei Zhou as chief AI scientist. The move signals the delivery robot startup's push to transform five years of real-world data into fully autonomous operations, potentially reshaping last-mile delivery economics.
Coco Robotics is betting big on physical AI. The Los Angeles-based delivery robot startup announced Tuesday it's launching a dedicated research lab led by UCLA professor Bolei Zhou, who's also joining as chief AI scientist. The move represents a significant escalation in the company's push toward full automation - and a direct challenge to competitors still relying on human operators.
The timing isn't coincidental. After five years of running delivery bots with teleoperator assistance, Coco Robotics has amassed what CEO Zach Rash calls a goldmine of real-world data. "We have millions of miles of data collected in the most complicated urban settings possible," Rash told TechCrunch. "We're now at the point where we have sufficient data scale where I think we can start really accelerating a lot of the research happening around physical AI."
The decision to tap Zhou was what Rash called a "no brainer." Zhou's research around computer vision and robotics has focused specifically on micromobility rather than full-scale vehicles - exactly what Coco Robotics needs. The professor is "one of the leading researchers in the whole world on robot navigation, reinforcement learning, and a lot of the technologies and areas of research that are highly relevant for us," according to Rash.
The partnership builds on existing ties between the company and UCLA. Both Rash and co-founder Brad Squicciarini are UCLA alumni, and the startup has already donated one of its bots to the school's research lab. Zhou has been recruiting top researchers from his network to join the effort, giving Coco Robotics access to world-class AI talent.
This new lab operates separately from Coco Robotics' existing collaboration with OpenAI, which was announced in June as part of the startup's $80 million Series C round. That partnership allows Coco Robotics to use models while giving the AI lab access to the company's robot-collected data. The UCLA lab, by contrast, focuses on developing local models that run directly on the robots.
