In the race for robot training data, ex-Meta researchers' startup turns to gig workers with cameras
Exclusive: In the race for robot training data, ex-Meta researchers’ startup turns to gig workers with cameras
Memories.ai is a San Francisco startup founded by former Meta researchers Shawn Shen and Ben Zhou that supplies first-person video data for robot training through its Memories Upload platform.
Source: Robotics — Robot learning news discovery · Read original article ↗
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What the source reports
Publisher-reported claims, with original evidence. These results have not been independently verified by RoboSignal.
- Data origin
- Human egocentric dataOpen source S2
Reported numbers
video hours recorded
>1,000,000 hours
View original evidence
, developed by Memories.ai, weighs under 45 grams and attaches magnetically to mounts worn on a person’s head, chest or wrist. It captures POV video of the contributors doing various tasks. Two cameras can be paired for stereo capture, providing views that help estimate depth. Memories.ai says its network recorded more than 1 million hours of first-person video in the platform’s first month in beta and that it aims t
Open source S3target video hours by March 2027
>10,000,000 hours
View original evidence
o collect more than 10 million hours by March 2027. The company was founded by former Meta researchers Shawn Shen and Ben Zhou. The company announced an $8 million seed round in July 2025 led by Susa Ventures, with investors including Samsung Next. Humanoid robotics startup Figure and Physical Intelligence, a startup that builds AI software “brains” that can control a variety of different types of robots and embodied
Open source S4video hours recorded in first month of beta
>1,000,000 hours
View original evidence
, developed by Memories.ai, weighs under 45 grams and attaches magnetically to mounts worn on a person’s head, chest or wrist. It captures POV video of the contributors doing various tasks. Two cameras can be paired for stereo capture, providing views that help estimate depth. Memories.ai says its network recorded more than 1 million hours of first-person video in the platform’s first month in beta and that it aims t
Open source S3seed round amount
8,000,000
View original evidence
o collect more than 10 million hours by March 2027. The company was founded by former Meta researchers Shawn Shen and Ben Zhou. The company announced an $8 million seed round in July 2025 led by Susa Ventures, with investors including Samsung Next. Humanoid robotics startup Figure and Physical Intelligence, a startup that builds AI software “brains” that can control a variety of different types of robots and embodied
Open source S4camera weight
<45
View original evidence
, developed by Memories.ai, weighs under 45 grams and attaches magnetically to mounts worn on a person’s head, chest or wrist. It captures POV video of the contributors doing various tasks. Two cameras can be paired for stereo capture, providing views that help estimate depth. Memories.ai says its network recorded more than 1 million hours of first-person video in the platform’s first month in beta and that it aims t
Open source S3
Dataset details reported by the source
- Modalities
- first-person video Open source S2stereo capture Open source S3
- Tasks
- preparing food Open source S2stocking shelves Open source S2repairing equipment Open source S2everyday tasks Open source S5
- paper: not_reported
- code: not_reported
- weights: not_reported
What remains unknown
Dataset licensing and commercial-use rights are not established here.
Source excerpts and review record
Automatically extracted; no manual editorial approval recorded.
Memories.ai is paying people to show robots how to do their jobs. The San Francisco startup supplies first-person video data for robot training, with cameras capturing the hands-on details of preparing food, stocking shelves and repairing equipment. The company is launching Memories Upload, a global gig-work platform where contributors take paid video-recording tasks to help train robots. Its wearable LUCI Pin camera
Open source S2
, developed by Memories.ai, weighs under 45 grams and attaches magnetically to mounts worn on a person’s head, chest or wrist. It captures POV video of the contributors doing various tasks. Two cameras can be paired for stereo capture, providing views that help estimate depth. Memories.ai says its network recorded more than 1 million hours of first-person video in the platform’s first month in beta and that it aims t
Open source S3
AI devices, are both exploring how robots can learn from POV video footage. Figure’s Index platform pays people to record everyday tasks for its Helix AI models. Physical Intelligence has tested combining human video with teleoperation data, which is recorded as people control robots remotely, demonstrating how to complete tasks or handle unfamiliar objects and environments. Physical Intelligence co-founder Sergey L
Open source S5
evine wrote in a blog post that human video and other supplementary data could provide “a source of knowledge about what can happen in the real world,” complementing data collected by robots themselves. For a robot learning to make coffee, those recordings could show how someone grips a cup, positions it beneath a grinder and moves it without spilling. Footage from different kitchens, tools and ways of working can ex
Open source S6
o collect more than 10 million hours by March 2027. The company was founded by former Meta researchers Shawn Shen and Ben Zhou. The company announced an $8 million seed round in July 2025 led by Susa Ventures, with investors including Samsung Next. Humanoid robotics startup Figure and Physical Intelligence, a startup that builds AI software “brains” that can control a variety of different types of robots and embodied
Open source S4
robot learning,” Zhuang said of Memories.ai . The company says its customers include three of the top five frontier AI labs, alongside robotics developers buying its first-person training data, although the company declined to name these customers citing non-disclosure agreements. Co-founder and CEO Shawn Shen told Fortune that customers increasingly want footage covering a wider range of work environments, tasks an
Open source S10
d camera angles. Two people making coffee in different kitchens can supply useful variation, he said, even when they are completing the same task. Developers also request wrist-level footage to see interactions that a camera on someone’s head might miss, such as exactly when a hand touches an object. Adam Scraba, Nvidia’s head of physical AI ecosystem for vision agents, told Fortune that the wide variety of specializ
Open source S11
Implications for data suppliers
RoboSignal interpretation and collection questions, not statements of buyer demand.
- Check whether the intended buyer needs human observations, hand or object annotations, or aligned robot actions. Human video alone does not provide robot commands.
- Compare the reported units and scope before using these quantities in a budget. Recording hours, sensor-hours and trajectories are different measures.
- Check the exact dataset version, license, modalities and task coverage against the intended use.
- Validate demand and acceptance criteria with a buyer before scaling. Publication, popularity and a research result do not establish a purchase commitment.
Source：Robotics — Robot learning news discovery · msn.com