March 08, 2025

At Nvidia GTC 2025, Artly AI unveiled a major upgrade to its Barista Bot: a natural, bionic robotic hand that brings the robot’s movements significantly closer to human-level dexterity and control. This advancement marks a key step in Artly’s mission to replicate human craftsmanship through AI-powered robotics.

‍What’s New?

‍The upgrade features both hardware and software improvements:
* A bionic hand replaces the previous industrial gripper, allowing the robot to handle everyday objects—like fruit, utensils, and glassware—with greater flexibility.
* On the software side, Artly enhanced its imitation learning platform to track hand and finger movements with millimeter-level precision, enabling the Barista Bot to perform complex tasks more accurately using vision-language-action (VLA) AI models.

‍Why It Matters

‍Controlling a bionic hand is far more complex than using traditional grippers. Artly's AI action policy models make it possible to train the robot using motion capture data, enabling it to replicate human hand movements in a natural, adaptive way. This means the Barista Bot can now:
Handle a variety of cup shapes and materials
‍Perform more expressive, artisanal tasks like melting chocolate for mochas or adding garnishes
Deliver a more authentic and elevated customer experience

Artly relies on NVIDIA’s AI accelerators and cloud-based GPUs to power and train its real-time action models. Additionally, Isaac Sim helps Artly generate robust simulation data to improve training outcomes.

‍Beyond Coffee

‍While designed for café environments, this natural robotic hand technology has broad potential—from food service and bartending to healthcare and logistics, where delicate manipulation and human-like interaction are essential.

‍What’s Next?

‍Artly is building a flexible, scalable AI robotics platform that works across various robotic hands and arms. Future goals include enabling the robot to perform simple tasks without demonstrations, improving data efficiency, and helping human operators focus on what matters most—their customers.