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Poland's Nomagic Deploys AI Model That Halved Warehouse Robot Interventions
Warsaw startup Nomagic has launched a new AI lab led by a former Google DeepMind researcher and deployed a vision-language-action model at customer sites that has cut the number of situations requiring human assistance in half.
Nomagic, a Warsaw-based startup building warehouse robots, has announced the first production deployments of a new AI model the company calls the 'brain' of its robots. The vision-language-action (VLA) model is already running at paying customers and, according to Nomagic, has cut in half the number of cases where a robot needed to call in a human for help.
The company, founded by Kacper Nowicki, former head of Google's Warsaw engineering office, has steadily carved out a niche in warehouse robotics built on so-called physical AI, systems that teach robots to recognize and grasp a wide variety of objects without programming each one individually in advance.
The New Lab and Its Leader
In early 2026, Nomagic launched a dedicated AI lab headed by Markus Wulfmeier, previously part of the Gemini Robotics team at Google DeepMind. The lab focuses on vision-language-action models, systems that simultaneously perceive their surroundings, understand text commands and carry out physical actions. The approach differs from the strategy of many competitors, who are racing to build the most general-purpose 'robot brain' possible.
Most of our community is racing to build the most general robot brain possible. We're betting that real-world proficiency is the harder problem - Markus Wulfmeier, Chief Scientist at Nomagic
How the New Model Works
Nomagic acknowledges that the VLA model alone doesn't yet reach the 99.9 percent reliability required for large-scale production use. That's why the company wraps it in conventional robotics software that acts as a safety net, taking over whenever the model encounters a situation beyond its competence. This hybrid architecture allowed the new system to be deployed commercially instead of waiting for a fully autonomous solution.
The first partner to run the new model was Switzerland's Brack.Alltron, the country's second-largest e-commerce platform. Another major deployment is with Zalando, where Nomagic's robots currently handle around 2 million successful package picks per month, and the new model is focused precisely on the toughest edge cases that previously required a worker to step in.
A Polish Company in Global Robotics
Nomagic was founded in Warsaw in 2017 by Kacper Nowicki, former head of Google's Warsaw engineering office, along with Marek Cygan and Tristan d'Orgeval. The company runs an R&D center in Warsaw employing more than 80 engineers and specialists, alongside a US office serving the American market. Nomagic's funding to date has topped $84 million, including Series B rounds and extensions closed in recent months.
In 2026, Nomagic also won the International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year award for its Shoebox Picker robot, which solves a notoriously tricky problem in warehouse automation, moving two-piece shoeboxes without knocking off their lids.
For Poland's tech sector, Nomagic's success shows that a homegrown startup can compete in the narrow but growing niche of physical AI against companies with far deeper pockets. The company's Warsaw research center employs specialists working on the same classes of models developed by giants like Google DeepMind, which for Poland's AI job market means more openings for robotics and machine learning engineers who can stay in the country instead of emigrating to major labs abroad.
Sources: Nomagic AI lab led by former Google DeepMind researcher claims success with 'AI brain' for warehouse robots (fortune.com), Nomagic's warehouse robots got an AI brain, and it halved the calls for human help (thenextweb.com)
