Archetype AI founder and chief executive Ivan Poupyrev believes the future of artificial intelligence will revolve around everyday objects like plants and doorknobs, not screens.
Mr Poupyrev told The National that his company, which was founded in 2023, will enhance the physical world in the same way that OpenAI's ChatGPT has enhanced the digital world. “Our approach at Archetype AI is that the physical world is already a platform,” he said.
Making use of sensors and Archetype’s foundational model, Newton, Mr Poupyrev said that millions of objects in our world can be improved.
“The physical world is very complex,” Mr Poupyrev said, adding that the way Archetype approached Newton was to figure out the data of how the physical world, with so many complex systems, actually works.
“I don’t know if hacking is the exact right way to describe it, but in some ways what we’ve done is find shortcuts to figuring out how we can humanise all these physical objects.”
The company’s promotional videos say that with Newton, almost anyone can build physical AI agents that can make smart homes even smarter by predicting what we might need to monitor traffic outside. Archetype’s founder said that the company’s proprietary technology can “reveal the hidden patterns of the physical world” beyond basic human perception.
In a 2019 TED Talk, Mr Poupyrev said that Archetype’s technology could be used to turn a houseplant into a musical instrument that can be played with human touch. He also explained how physical AI can be used to enhance an orchid.
“We can give things a personality – in this particular example, the orchid can communicate through images and sounds, and since it doesn’t like to be touched, it sort of hisses at you with these electric images,” he said.
On the sidelines of a recent technology and economic conference in Washington, Mr Poupyrev said that Archetype’s vision of physical AI is more practical than a future pitched by others that consists largely of robots.
“Why do we need to wait for robot [technology] to bring all these benefits when we can deploy these foundational models in everyday physical objects and assets?” he asked.
He said that Archetype’s vision of the future is much more efficient and practical. AI models, he explained, consist mostly of text, but models for the physical world consist mostly of measurements.
“We built a foundational model for sensors, which help us understand the physical world,” Mr Poupyrev said.
The inspiration for Mr Poupyrev’s ideas surrounding physical AI are rooted in a 1984 book published by the technology journalist Steven Levy, called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. The book is now viewed as one of the first to attempt to explain technology culture and the corporate tidal wave that accompanied it.
He declined to name Archetype's current clients, but pointed to several collaborations with companies such as Japan's NTT Data, T-Mobile and Nvidia. More broadly, he said Archetype sees a lot of potential for the Newton physical AI platform to appeal to the manufacturing, energy and infrastructure sectors.
“We can help make all those things more efficient, and that’s where all the attention is right now,” he said. As of 2025, Archetype has raised approximately $35 million in Series A funding, led by IAG Capital Partners and Hitachi Ventures.
That funding round also brought participation “from new and existing” investors including Bezos Expeditions, Venrock, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Samsung, E12, Systemiq Capital, HLV, Gaingels and Plug and Play Ventures, among others.
