New to Physical AI? Here Are 8 Terms You Should Know

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We’ve taught AI to write, draw, and answer questions. I work in a field where engineers are teaching it to interact with the physical world.

Think about something as simple as picking up a cup of coffee.

You look at the cup, estimate how far away it is, reach for it, adjust your grip, and lift it. You probably don’t even think about any of these steps.

Now, if the robot has to do it, then, it needs to recognize the cup, figure out where it is, decide how to approach it, control its movements, and apply just enough force to pick it up without dropping or crushing it.

And if someone moves the cup halfway through? Well, things just got a little more interesting.

We’ve become quite familiar with Artificial Intelligence that operates inside our screens. AI can generate images, write code, answer questions, and even reason through complex problems.

But bringing that intelligence into the physical world introduces a completely different set of challenges.

This is where Physical AI comes in.

Physical AI brings together artificial intelligence and physical systems, allowing machines to perceive their surroundings, make decisions, and take actions in the real world.

And we’re not talking exclusively about humanoid robots. Autonomous vehicles, robotic arms, mobile robots, like the ducks in the NVIDIA GTC 2026, and many other…