Google DeepMind releases Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6
Boston Dynamics’ Spot uses it to read gauges
Confirmed
The takeaway
On 2026-04-14 Google DeepMind released Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 (gemini-robotics-er-1.6-preview), an embodied-reasoning model for robot perception, planning and success detection, in the Gemini API and AI Studio.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 2 of 5
- Last verified
- 29 September 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 AstraIn its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5In its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen14 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7In its training data
It is after the cutoff of Gemini 4 Hydrogen, and can be in the training data of GPT-6 Astra, Claude Opus 5.5 and Grok 4.7.
Key facts
- Released 2026-04-14 in the Gemini API / Google AI Studio as gemini-robotics-er-1.6-preview (shut down 2026-08-31, replaced by ER 2)
- Instrument reading (pressure gauges, thermometers, sight glasses, digital readouts): ER 1.5 23%, Gemini 3 Flash 67%, ER 1.6 86%, ER 1.6 + agentic vision 93%
- Improved pointing, counting and multi-view success detection over ER 1.5 and Gemini 3 Flash
- Deployed in Boston Dynamics Spot for autonomous industrial inspection rounds
- DeepMind reports better adherence to physical safety constraints (e.g. gripper/material limits)
What happened
ER 1.6 is the “thinking” layer of the Gemini Robotics stack. It looks at camera feeds, points at and counts objects, plans steps and judges whether a task succeeded, then hands off to a VLA or to a robot’s own controllers. The headline new skill, reading analog instruments, came from work with Boston Dynamics, whose Spot robots use it on inspection rounds.
Why it matters
It is a concrete, measurable commercial use of a frontier multimodal model inside a deployed robot fleet. ER 1.6 was superseded about four months later by Gemini Robotics-ER 2.
Sources
4 sources from 4 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
4 sources: 3 primary, 1 press
Primary
- Google DeepMind: Gemini Robotics ER 1.6deepmind.google, official
- Google blog: Gemini Robotics ER-1.6blog.google, official
- Gemini API deprecations (ER 1.6 dates)ai.google.dev, docs
Press
- SiliconANGLE: DeepMind launches Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6siliconangle.com, press
Changes
- Filed