Bedrock Robotics deploys operatorless excavators at three commercial sites

Bedrock Robotics, founded by Boris Sofman, Kevin Peterson, Tom Eliaz and Ajay Gummalla, has deployed operatorless excavators at three commercial construction sites in Texas and Nevada, including a water treatment facility, marking an early commercial test of autonomous excavation technology. The machines operate without people in their cabs, and Bedrock has not disclosed the specific projects or the number of excavators in use. The deployment follows Bedrock's November 2025 milestone of moving over 65,000 cubic yards at a 130-acre Sundt Construction project with supervised systems, and Vineet Kamat, a University of Michigan construction management professor, called the new deployment "a limited test.

Boris Sofman, Kevin Peterson, Tom Eliaz and Ajay Gummalla have moved Bedrock Robotics https://bedrockrobotics.com/about?ref=runtimewire from supervised excavation into operatorless work on active construction sites, an early commercial test of whether technology developed for self-driving vehicles can handle the shifting terrain and tight economics of construction. Excavators fitted with Bedrock's autonomous system are digging and moving earth at three sites in Texas and Nevada, including a water treatment facility, according to Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/bedrock-robotics-construction-ai-excavators-2026-8?ref=runtimewire . The machines are operating without people in their cabs. Bedrock has not named the three projects or said how many excavators are running across them. Sofman has spent much of his career trying to move robotics out of controlled demonstrations. He earned bachelor's and doctoral degrees at Carnegie Mellon, then co-founded Anki, which introduced its AI-powered Anki Drive cars https://www.ri.cmu.edu/startup-by-ri-alums-gets-high-profile-spot-at-apple-wwdc/?ref=runtimewire during an Apple keynote in 2013. Anki later built the Cozmo and Vector robots before shutting down in 2019 after a financing deal fell through. Sofman joined Waymo that year and led engineering for its autonomous-trucking program. Peterson arrived at the same problem through delivery robots, lunar systems and heavy machinery. Before Bedrock, he co-founded Marble Robot, became an autonomy architect at Caterpillar after it acquired Marble, and worked on lunar landers at Astrobotic. He was most recently Waymo's head of perception for commercial trucking, according to his published biography https://leaddev.com/community/kevin-peterson?ref=runtimewire . Bedrock is the founders' attempt to reuse that experience in a market where machines already operate in constrained areas, carry out repetitive jobs and generate revenue by moving material. Construction also creates a different technical problem: an excavator changes its own environment with every bucket of dirt. From supervised digging to empty cabs The Bedrock Operator https://bedrockrobotics.com/technology?ref=runtimewire is a retrofit package for existing equipment, adding sensors and onboard computing for perception, planning and machine control. A site manager assigns work, and the excavator carries it out while responding to terrain and obstacles. The underlying machine can still be driven manually. Bedrock's previous public milestone still kept humans close to the workflow. In November 2025, Bedrock said its supervised systems had moved more than 65,000 cubic yards at a 130-acre manufacturing project for Sundt Construction. Autonomous excavators loaded articulated dump trucks driven by people, and the system had been installed on excavators ranging from 20 tons to 80 tons, according to Bedrock's announcement https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bedrock-robotics-announces-supervised-autonomy-testing-on-active-construction-sites-in-move-towards-commercialization-302617799.html?ref=runtimewire . Removing the onboard operator marks a concrete step beyond that trial. The scope remains narrow. Bedrock's system currently works only with excavators and has reached three commercial sites. Vineet Kamat, a University of Michigan construction management professor, described the deployment to Business Insider as "a limited test." https://www.businessinsider.com/bedrock-robotics-construction-ai-excavators-2026-8?ref=runtimewire That limitation matters because construction sites resist standardization. Soil conditions change. Other workers and machines move through the operating area. Plans are revised, weather interrupts schedules and each completed task alters what the autonomy system encounters next. Bedrock's Waymo bet Peterson compared Bedrock's current position with Waymo's early deployments, when autonomous cars operated inside small geographic areas before expanding. "If you look at the scaling Waymo did year by year, we think our scaling will occur in the same way," https://www.businessinsider.com/bedrock-robotics-construction-ai-excavators-2026-8?ref=runtimewire he told Business Insider. The analogy explains Bedrock's technical strategy and its risk. Waymo could accumulate driving data on a common task across a growing service area. Bedrock wants one machine-learning architecture to carry skills between equipment types and jobs. Excavators are the starting point; bulldozers, loaders and dump trucks are on the roadmap. Peterson acknowledged that this transfer has yet to be established. "There are open questions about that transfer," he said. "We think it will work, but it will be hard." https://www.businessinsider.com/bedrock-robotics-construction-ai-excavators-2026-8?ref=runtimewire Waymo paused its autonomous-trucking program in 2023 to focus on ride-hailing. Bedrock gave Sofman, Peterson and other former Waymo engineers a new route for applying trucking-scale perception and planning to industrial machines. For Bedrock, construction offers something consumer robotics and autonomous trucking struggled to reach quickly: customers can measure the product against a specific unit of work, such as material moved, trucks loaded or hours of equipment utilization. $350 million buys a long proving period Investors have financed Bedrock as if the Waymo alumni can build a general autonomy platform rather than a single-purpose excavator attachment. Bedrock raised a $270 million Series B https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bedrock-robotics-raises-270-million-in-series-b-funding-to-accelerate-the-future-of-autonomous-construction-302679014.html?ref=runtimewire on February 4, bringing its total funding above $350 million and valuing Bedrock at $1.75 billion. CapitalG and Valor Atreides AI Fund co-led the financing, according to Bedrock's Series B announcement https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bedrock-robotics-raises-270-million-in-series-b-funding-to-accelerate-the-future-of-autonomous-construction-302679014.html?ref=runtimewire . The round also included Xora, 8VC https://www.8vc.com/resources/bedrock-series-a?ref=runtimewire , Eclipse https://eclipse.capital/blog/accelerating-industrial-innovation/?ref=runtimewire , Emergence Capital, Perry Creek Capital, Nvidia's NVentures, Tishman Speyer, MIT, Georgian, Incharge Capital and C4 Ventures https://c4v.com/companies/bedrock-robotics/?ref=runtimewire . Bedrock's July 2025 launch announcement https://bedrockrobotics.com/news/introducing-bedrock-robotics?ref=runtimewire disclosed its emergence from stealth with $80 million in seed and Series A financing. That capital gives Bedrock room to collect field data and expand into additional equipment, but it does not settle the buying decision facing contractors. Construction work is commonly awarded through competitive bids, and margins leave little tolerance for machinery that performs well in a demonstration without lowering the cost or duration of a project. Bedrock also entered an established contest. Built Robotics https://www.builtrobotics.com/technology?ref=runtimewire sells an autonomous retrofit for excavators, with cameras, GPS and onboard computing connected to a remote command system. AIM Intelligent Machines retrofits mixed heavy-equipment fleets. Caterpillar https://www.caterpillar.com/en/news/corporate-press-releases/h/next-era-autonomy.html?ref=runtimewire , which has operated autonomous equipment in mining for decades, is extending autonomy across excavators, loaders, haul trucks, dozers and compactors. Bedrock's founders are betting that a data-driven system developed by people who worked on public-road autonomy will adapt across more machines and less predictable work. Contractors will judge that thesis through ordinary operating numbers: cost per cubic yard, equipment uptime, supervision requirements, fuel use, rework and project duration. Humans are likely to remain part of that equation. Fernanda Leite, a University of Texas at Austin civil engineering professor, told Business Insider that near-term construction sites may resemble airports, where automated systems work beside trained people https://www.businessinsider.com/bedrock-robotics-construction-ai-excavators-2026-8?ref=runtimewire . Peterson offered a similar view, expecting workers to remain on sites as Bedrock expands. That makes the three deployments an important transition rather than a finished product. Bedrock has removed the person from the excavator cab. Its larger task is proving that autonomy can earn a permanent place in the project budget.