Artificial intelligence is evolving just as our minds do while growing up

It is interesting how robots are coming back. Nvidia recently announced an investment in robotic startup Field, valued at $2 billion and revenue-positive. Another one, Skid, has raised money from SoftBank at a valuation of $4 billion, while Physical Intelligence raised half of that and released its first model Pi-Zero. AI seems to be going back to robots. 

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Nvidia founder Jensen Huang has neatly captured the way AI has moved: from Perception AI to Generative AI to Agentic AI, and, finally, to Physical AI (bit.ly/3EPXA4f). Curiously, this is how humans grow too, taking the human-AI similarity to a new level.

For the first 50-odd years, AI focused on recognizing and interpreting data patterns and sensory inputs, much like a baby learning to distinguish faces and voices and detecting patterns in all the random ‘noise’ seen and heard. 

Just as our senses help us navigate reality, Perception AI is the eyes and ears of this technology. It sees patterns in vast data-sets and listens to the nuances of human language. It is the reason your phone can identify your face or why streaming platforms know what you may want to watch next. Perception AI lets machines see, hear and read.

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The second phase in Huang’s diagram is Generative AI, the equivalent of a child learning to paint, author stories or compose music. This is where AI started to not just perceive, but create. It uses neural networks to produce original content—text, images, videos or code. 

If Perception AI is the sense organ, Generative AI is the imagination and the creative force behind ChatGPT, Google’s Veo and Claude, which can generate human-like conversations, digital art and marketing campaigns. GenAI has democratized creativity: it has lowered barriers, enabling the production of high-quality content at scale and speed. AI has become a collaborator in the human creative process.

In the third phase of Huang’s chart, AI moves from imagination to reasoning and decision-making abilities. With Agentic AI, it starts developing a ‘mind’ of its own, much like a human teenager acquiring critical thinking and problem-solving skills. AI is no longer a passive tool, but an active participant, capable of understanding context, learning from interactions and taking actions to achieve goals. 

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Agentic AI is the thinker and planner, with autonomy to act within set parameters. This is where AI steps into roles that require context-awareness, such as virtual assistants that understand user preferences or customer support bots that resolve complex issues. 

Imagine Agentic AI like an intern—it anticipates needs, solves problems before they arise and collaborates with humans on strategic tasks. This phase represents the emergence of AI as a cognitive partner, influencing how we work, learn and live.

The final frontier depicted by Huang is Physical AI, the embodiment of intelligence in machines that can interact with the physical world. This is where AI matures into an adult, capable of independent action. It combines perception, creativity, reasoning and physical action. 

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Imagine a robot surgeon performing precise operations, a self-driving car navigating city traffic or drones delivering packages. Physical AI transforms digital intelligence into real-world capabilities, impacting industries from healthcare to logistics, agriculture and beyond. In this phase, machines move, adapt and evolve in the real world. Huang sees it as a several trillion dollar market.

In the end, AI’s evolution is less about replacing humans and more about enhancing human capabilities. Just as the smartphone amplified human communication, AI amplifies human cognition, creativity and action. 

The future belongs to those who embrace this human-AI symbiosis, leveraging intelligent machines to solve complex problems and create meaningful experiences. 

It is no coincidence that the graph presented by Huang is not just a timeline of AI’s past and future, but a blueprint for human progress. It shows how intelligence, once confined to biological minds, is expanding to machines that can perceive, create, reason and act. It is the story of intelligence itself, growing up and venturing into the world.

The author is a founder of AI&Beyond and the author of ‘The Tech Whisperer’.