It started with a simple frustration: Robots were everywhere in videos, research labs, and expensive factories — but not in the places where they were needed the most: homes, elder care centers, hostels, and real-life environments.
During our time as interns at Wipro PARI, we met while working in industrial robotics. Both of us were fascinated by robots, but equally frustrated that real-world robotics felt locked behind million-dollar labs and rigid systems that never left cages.
Everything changed when we started experimenting with open-source Lerobot So100 arms. We didn’t have access to high-end hardware, so we built with what we had: low-cost arms, open-source software, and sheer persistence.
One night, we decided to attempt something everyone online said was impossible with such hardware: folding clothes.
We teleoperated and used available imitation-learning pipelines and policies. For days it failed. Until suddenly — it worked. A cheap little robot arm folded its first t-shirt.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. That t-shirt changed our lives.
We realized something huge: If low-cost robots + smart AI could fold a t-shirt, they could help millions of people in the real world.
This was the first spark of General Intelligence.
We started building towards a future where robots are not locked in factories, but present in everyday homes — safe, affordable, and powered by Physical AI that perceives, reasons, and acts in the messy real world.
Our journey continued through:
Today, General Intelligence is building the first generation of useful home robots — robots that can understand your home, manipulate objects, and genuinely help people reclaim time and independence.
And this is only the beginning.
Pratham V Jain
Founder
Chirag Sharma
Co-Founder