Google DeepMind Releases Gemini Robotics 2.5, Claims 96% Success on Mercedes-Benz Factory Pilot

Google DeepMind announced Gemini Robotics 2.5 on November 10, a vision-language-action model rolling out to robotics partners Agile, Apptronik, and Mercedes-Benz rather than the public, after a proof-of-concept pilot in which Apptronik's Apollo 2 humanoid robots performed automotive kitting at Mercedes-Benz plants in Kecskemét, Hungary, and Sindelfingen, Germany, with a reported 96% success rate. DeepMind reports the model beat unnamed previous baselines by 30% to 100% on over 200 distinct tasks and completed them 20% to 30% faster, while inference-time reasoning guidance raised safe task completion by 33% around obstacles and 43% around nearby people. DeepMind director Kanishka Rao told Ars Technica that closing the remaining 4% gap would be a "steep road," and the release includes no public API, pricing, technical paper, or independent evaluation.

Google DeepMind Releases Gemini Robotics 2.5, Claims 96% Success on Mercedes-Benz Factory Pilot Google DeepMind announced Gemini Robotics 2.5 on November 10, calling it its most capable vision-language-action VLA model to date. The model is rolling out to robotics partners — not the public — after a proof-of-concept run on Mercedes-Benz production lines where Apptronik's Apollo 2 humanoid robots picked and packed automotive parts with a reported 96% success rate. What shipped Gemini Robotics 2.5 is a VLA model: it takes visual input and language instructions and outputs robot actions. DeepMind says it improves on three axes — dexterity, reliability, and safety — and that Gemini 4 Argon, a separate Gemini model, accelerated its development by generating simulated practice runs from real camera scenes. The announcement names three partners: Agile, Apptronik, and Mercedes-Benz. No price, public API, or technical paper was released. DeepMind's blog post states the model "is rolling out to our robotics partners." The Mercedes-Benz pilot The headline reliability figure comes from a proof of concept at Mercedes-Benz plants in Kecskemét, Hungary, and Sindelfingen, Germany. Apollo 2 robots performed automotive kitting: reaching into bulk bins, grasping metal brackets, and placing them into sequencing trays in vehicle-build order. Two models divided the work. Gemini Robotics ER embodied reasoning tracked the multi-step workflow. Gemini Robotics 2.5 controlled the robot's hands and arms. DeepMind reports a 96% success rate on this task. DeepMind director Kanishka Rao told Ars Technica that closing the remaining 4% gap would be a "steep road." Robotics head Carolina Parada described a tension between making a robot excellent at one application and preserving its ability to handle many different jobs, saying that pushing for generalization may mean not reaching 99.9% reliability in every application \ 6\ https://superpowerdaily.com/posts/google-deepmind-releases-robot-ai-citing-96-success-in-mercedes-factory-pilot . The post does not say how many picks the 96% covers, nor how long the pilot ran. It is labeled a proof of concept, not a production deployment. Lab results: 200 tasks, unnamed baselines DeepMind evaluated the model on "over 200 distinct tasks" including serving food with tongs, tying a bow on a gift box, and pipetting liquid. It reports a 30% to 100% higher success rate than "previous baselines" depending on task type, and 20% to 30% faster completion. The baselines are not named, and their absolute scores are not given. The post says the model works on Apptronik's Apollo 2 with a 22-degree-of-freedom SharpaWave hand and the Franka Duo dual-arm platform with two-finger grippers. Ars Technica reports the model still runs on cloud servers, meaning the reported speed gains do not establish low-latency, on-robot operation. Safety: steerability and a new jailbreak benchmark DeepMind says Gemini Robotics 2.5 uses inference-time reasoning guidance to steer around hazards in real time. In its evaluations, this boosted safe task completion by 33% around obstacles and 43% around nearby people. The company is also releasing ASIMOV-Jailbreak, an open-source benchmark of hundreds of prompts that disguise unsafe requests across dozens of scenes. DeepMind reports 99.5% jailbreak resistance for Gemini 4 Argon on this benchmark, compared to 82% for Gemini Robotics ER 2. The 99.5% figure belongs to Argon, not to Gemini Robotics 2.5 itself. The post gives no ASIMOV-Jailbreak score for the VLA model being released. What is not in the release - No public access, pricing, or API documentation. - No named baselines for the 30–100% improvement claim. - No sample size for the 96% factory figure. - No technical paper for Gemini Robotics 2.5 a Gemini 4 safety report is linked . - Every number comes from DeepMind or its partners; no independent evaluation is cited. What to watch - Whether ASIMOV-Jailbreak scores from other labs match DeepMind's. - Whether the Mercedes pilot extends to sustained, shift-long operation with recovery from grasp failures. - Whether partners beyond the named three receive access, and on what terms. - Whether on-robot compute replaces cloud inference for latency-sensitive tasks. DeepMind calls Gemini Robotics 2.5 "an important milestone on the path toward solving physical AGI." The factory pilot is a concrete step. The gap between a 96% proof of concept and a robot that stays on the line remains, as DeepMind's own researchers acknowledge, a steep road. Sources 1. Gemini Robotics 2.5: Accelerating Physical Intelligence https://deepmind.google/blog/gemini-robotics-2-5-accelerates-real-world-physical-intelligence deepmind.google 2. Gemini Robotics 2.5: 200 Tasks, 96% on a Mercedes Line https://cellcog.ai/blog/gemini-robotics-2-5 cellcog.ai 3. Gemini Robotics 2.5: 96% Kitting, New Safety Bench https://explainx.ai/blog/gemini-robotics-2-5-mercedes-kitting-asimov-jailbreak-2026 explainx.ai 4. Google brings Gemini Robotics 2.5 to a new factory test https://www.blackscarab.ai/news/google-gemini-robotics-2-5-factory-kitting blackscarab.ai 5. Gemini Robotics 2.5 launches with enhanced everyday skills https://cryptobriefing.com/gemini-robotics-2-5-launch-everyday-skills cryptobriefing.com 6. Google DeepMind releases robot AI, citing 96% success in Mercedes factory pilot https://superpowerdaily.com/posts/google-deepmind-releases-robot-ai-citing-96-success-in-mercedes-factory-pilot superpowerdaily.com 7. DeepMind unveils Gemini Robotics 2.5 and open safety benchmark ASIMOV-Jailbreak | Межа https://mezha.net/eng/news/mezha-76165dd7fb3fabecc2835bf4 deepmind unveils gemini mezha.net