Exploring frontier models for physical AI
Bill Doerrfeld | February 28, 2026
My
latest for The New Stack explores the software side of the next era of robotics.
What are the frontier models underlying physical AI? Today, my feature with
The New Stack
looks into the software side of the next era of robotics.
The piece explores new physical AI models like LBM, VLA, and open-world models, and considers the role of edge computing and the enterprise constraints of physical AI at scale.
Thanks to the experts who shared insights for this story!
-Akhil D., senior robotics product marketing manager at
NVIDIA
-MattMalchano, vice president, software,
Boston Dynamics
-Kevin Peterson, CTO,
Bedrock Robotics
-Brian Moore, co-founder and CEO at
Voxel51
In short, the real breakthrough in robotics isn't hardware — it’s in the new class of foundation models physical AI requires.
In the latest DirectorPlus, Workato's CTO explains how MCP-enabled integration catalyzed internal AI usage and ROI.
My latest on InfoWorld reviews MCP servers from 5 major cloud providers
How are organizations actually using agentic knowledge bases in practice? My article for The New Stack looks at six emerging patterns.
My report for the eBPF Foundation explores enterprise eBPF case studies, production deployments, and real business outcomes across cloud-native environments.
Longtime Bottomless user sharing why I love automated coffee delivery triggered by a smart scale, plus a referral link for a free first bag.
MCP servers can quickly drain context windows without guardrails. Thankfully, there are ways around this, say the experts.
It may seem like AI agents are suddenly doing everything across industries. But in reality, the pace of agentic AI is moving carefully, and very deliberately, in highly regulated environments like finance and banking.
My latest feature for InfoWorld explores when it makes sense to scrape public web sources, and when official API integrations are the better choice for external data.
What does it mean to go nano with your software updates — to "carve with a scalpel" instead of swinging a hammer? For my latest DirectorPlus piece, I caught up with Chainguard VP Dustin Kirkland to dig into that idea.
I recently moderated a webinar that brought together three luminaries in the API community to discuss the importance of API standards in agentic AI development.
