INNOVATION

Every Pokémon Go player unknowingly trained future robots.

Over the years, players photographed 30 billion images from cities around the world.

And now that data is teaching delivery robots to navigate streets.

Niantic (company behind Pokémon Go), spun out an AI company called… pic.twitter.com/q8WGpuU0vT

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) 20 mars 2026

Every Pokémon Go player unknowingly trained future robots. Over the years, players photographed 30 billion images from cities around the world. And now that data is teaching delivery robots to navigate streets. Niantic (company behind Pokémon Go), spun out an AI company called Niantic Spatial that's turning years of player data into a visual positioning system for machines. When 500 million people installed the game and pointed their phones at buildings, landmarks, and street corners, they were also capturing detailed location data that normal GPS can't match: > GPS signals bounce off skyscrapers and lose accuracy by up to 50 meters in dense cities. > That's a dealbreaker for sidewalk delivery robots that need to stop at exactly the right point. > Niantic Spatial trained a model on those 30 billion images to pinpoint a robot's exact location based on what its cameras see, not satellite signals. > Delivery startup Coco Robotics is the first partner, using the system to guide thousands of robots across LA, Chicago, and Miami. Don't think anyone thought they were training robots when they were chasing Pikachu during COVID.

→ View original post on X — @rowancheung, 2026-03-20 16:15 UTC