Covariant

aid: covariant
name: Covariant
description: Covariant is an Emeryville, California warehouse-robotics AI company founded in 2017 (originally as Embodied
  Intelligence) by UC Berkeley professor Pieter Abbeel and his former students Peter Chen, Rocky Duan, and Tianhao Zhang.
  The company builds the Covariant Brain, a universal AI platform that enables industrial picking robots to handle virtually
  any SKU regardless of shape, size, or packaging, and in March 2024 it introduced RFM-1 (Robotics Foundation Model 1), an
  8-billion-parameter multimodal transformer trained on text, images, video, robot actions, and numerical sensor readings
  to give robots human-like reasoning over the physical world. Covariant ships AI-powered solutions for order picking, sortation,
  item induction, kitting, depalletization, and goods-to-person workflows, delivered through long-running integration partnerships
  with KNAPP (Pick-it-Easy Robot, since 2020) and ABB (warehouse robotics, since 2020), as well as deployments with retailers
  and logistics providers worldwide. In August 2024, Amazon announced a non-exclusive license to Covariant's robotic foundation
  models and hired its three co-founders along with roughly a quarter of its workforce in a reverse-acquihire arrangement;
  Covariant continues to operate independently under COO-turned-CEO Ted Stinson and co-founder Tianhao Zhang. The Covariant
  Brain and RFM-1 are proprietary, deployed on-premise on partner robotics hardware, and the company has no public developer
  API, SDK, open-source release, or third-party developer program.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Provider
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/covariant.png
tags:
- Robotics
- Warehouse Robotics
- Warehouse Automation
- Industrial Robotics
- AI Robotics
- Embodied AI
- Foundation Models
- Robotics Foundation Model
- RFM-1
- Covariant Brain
- Picking Robots
- Depalletization
- Sortation
- Goods-to-Person
- Logistics
- Supply Chain
- Manufacturing
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/covariant/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-24'
modified: '2026-05-24'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
apis: []
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/covariant-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://covariant.ai
- type: CovariantBrain
  url: https://covariant.ai/covariant-brain/
- type: Research
  url: https://covariant.ai/research/
- type: About
  url: https://covariant.ai/about-us/
- type: Resources
  url: https://covariant.ai/resources/
- type: AutomationSolutions
  url: https://covariant.ai/resources/automation-solutions/
- type: Blog
  url: https://covariant.ai/resources/blog/
- type: Insights
  url: https://covariant.ai/insights/
- type: GoodsToPersonPicking
  url: https://covariant.ai/robotic-goods-to-person-picking/
- type: Depalletization
  url: https://covariant.ai/robotic-depalletization/
- type: RFM1Announcement
  url: https://covariant.ai/covariant-introduces-rfm-1-to-give-robots-the-human-like-ability-to-reason/
- type: KNAPPPartnership
  url: https://covariant.ai/knapp-and-covariant-extend-their-success-story/
- type: Contact
  url: https://covariant.ai/contact/
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/covariantai
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/CovariantAI
- type: Medium
  url: https://medium.com/covariant-ai
- type: Wikipedia
  url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariant_(company)
- type: CrunchbasePieterAbbeel
  url: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pieter-abbeel
- type: AmazonLicensingNews
  url: https://www.geekwire.com/2024/amazon-hires-covariant-founders-inks-licensing-deal-with-robotics-ai-startup-in-latest-reverse-acquihire-deal/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com