Last Updated: February 17, 2026
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- Key Takeaways
- The Two Companies: A Quick Primer
- What Bedrock Robotics Actually Does
- What FieldAI Actually Does
- The Key Difference: Hardware vs. Software Brain
- Why NVIDIA Backed Both — and What That Signals
- Who Wins — and What It Means for Contractors
- The Automation That’s Available to You Right Now
- Frequently Asked Questions
Key Takeaways
- Bedrock Robotics ($270M, $1.75B valuation) builds hardware autonomy — a retrofit kit that makes existing excavators, bulldozers, and loaders operate without a human operator in the cab.
- FieldAI ($405M) builds software autonomy — an AI “brain” that coordinates and directs robots and autonomous systems already on the job site, regardless of brand.
- They are not direct competitors — they are complementary layers of the same autonomous construction stack. Bedrock handles the machine; FieldAI handles the coordination of machines.
- NVIDIA backed both through its NVentures arm, which is a deliberate thesis — not a coincidence. NVIDIA needs GPU-hungry autonomous fleets at massive scale to sell more compute.
- Neither technology is coming to residential job sites this decade. The immediate opportunity for smaller contractors is back-office AI, not job-site robotics.
- Both companies are deploying today — on data centers, manufacturing campuses, and port infrastructure — not in pilot labs.
The Two Companies: A Quick Primer
When Bedrock Robotics closed its $270 million Series B at a $1.75 billion valuation in early February 2026, it joined FieldAI as the second headline-grabbing autonomous construction raise in under six months. FieldAI had closed a $405 million round in August 2025. Both companies have NVIDIA’s venture arm on their cap tables. Both are staffed by former autonomous vehicle engineers who spent years building self-driving technology before pivoting to construction sites.
On the surface they look like the same bet. But they’re solving fundamentally different problems — and understanding that difference tells you more about where construction technology is actually heading than any individual press release.
What Bedrock Robotics Actually Does
Bedrock’s product is the Bedrock Operator — a hardware retrofit kit that uses LiDAR, GPS, and motion sensors to make existing heavy construction equipment autonomous. Bolt it onto an excavator, bulldozer, or loader, and that machine can navigate a job site, execute grading or excavation tasks, and operate around the clock without a human in the cab.
The retrofit model is deliberate and strategically smart. General contractors have billions of dollars tied up in existing iron. They’re not going to scrap a five-year-old Cat 390 excavator to buy an autonomous-native machine. Bedrock’s pitch is: keep your equipment, add intelligence. The install takes a few hours with no permanent modifications — so the machine can run manned during the day and unmanned through the night if conditions allow.
In November 2025, Bedrock completed the construction industry’s largest known supervised autonomy deployment — a 130-acre mass excavation on a manufacturing campus in Texas, in partnership with Sundt Construction and Champion Site Prep. The word “supervised” is important: an operator monitors the machine remotely, but the machine is doing the physical work. That’s the current state of play. Fully unsupervised operation is the near-term roadmap.
Bedrock’s founding team comes out of Waymo, where CEO Boris Sofman led the self-driving trucks program and previously co-founded Anki Robotics. The company knows how to build safety-critical autonomous systems, which matters more than anything else in getting insurance and general contractor buy-in.
What FieldAI Actually Does
FieldAI describes its product as a “software brain for job site robotics” — but that description undersells both the scope and the ambition. The more accurate framing is that FieldAI builds the coordination and intelligence layer that sits above individual robots and autonomous machines, regardless of which hardware manufacturer built them.
Think of it like an operating system. A Windows OS doesn’t care whether your monitor is made by Dell or LG — it provides a common environment for software to run across different hardware. FieldAI is positioning itself as that common environment for construction robotics. A job site might eventually have Bedrock-equipped excavators, autonomous drones from a different vendor, and inspection robots from yet another company. FieldAI’s software layer is designed to coordinate all of them toward unified project goals.
The $405 million raise in August 2025 — also with NVIDIA backing — was the largest single contech raise of 2025 and sent a clear signal about where institutional capital thinks the real value in autonomous construction ultimately lives. Hardware commoditizes. Software and data don’t.
The Key Difference: Hardware Autonomy vs. the Software Brain
The clearest way to understand the distinction is with an analogy from the trucking industry. Waymo builds a self-driving system that makes a specific vehicle autonomous — that’s the Bedrock model. Fleet management software like Samsara coordinates and optimizes a fleet of trucks regardless of what’s powering them — that’s the FieldAI model.
Both are essential. An autonomous machine that can’t be directed efficiently is just an expensive piece of equipment. And coordination software with no autonomous hardware to direct is just theoretical. The two companies are building different floors of the same building, and the fact that NVIDIA backed both strongly suggests the investor community understands this.
FieldAI vs. Bedrock Robotics: Side-by-Side
Bedrock Robotics
Focus: Hardware autonomy retrofit
Product: Bedrock Operator (LiDAR, GPS, motion sensors on existing equipment)
Funding: $350M+ total, $270M Series B
Valuation: $1.75B
Deployment: Mass excavation, grading, earthmoving
Investors: CapitalG, NVentures (NVIDIA), Tishman Speyer, MIT
FieldAI
Focus: Software coordination layer for job-site robotics
Product: AI brain that directs autonomous systems across vendors
Funding: $405M raise
Deployment: Multi-robot coordination, job site intelligence
Investors: NVentures (NVIDIA) + others
Key point: These are not competing products. They are complementary layers of the same autonomous construction stack.
Why NVIDIA Backed Both — and What That Signals
The most underreported story in the contech funding wave is not any individual raise. It’s that NVIDIA’s venture arm — NVentures — placed chips on both Bedrock and FieldAI. That is not a diversified bet hedging between competitors. That’s a deliberate thesis about a two-layer market structure.
NVIDIA’s business model depends on selling the world’s most powerful AI compute hardware. Its GPU chips power everything from large language models to autonomous vehicles. The company’s strategic investment arm doesn’t just write checks to generate financial returns — it writes checks into markets that will drive massive GPU demand at scale.
Autonomous construction fleets — hundreds of machines running computer vision, sensor fusion, and real-time coordination algorithms simultaneously on active job sites — represent exactly the kind of compute demand NVIDIA needs to justify building the next generation of industrial AI chips. Backing both the hardware autonomy layer (Bedrock) and the software coordination layer (FieldAI) is NVIDIA’s way of ensuring that whichever company wins the larger market, the infrastructure running it burns NVIDIA silicon.
For a deeper look at NVIDIA’s broader construction technology strategy, see our analysis of Meta’s $10B NVIDIA chip deal and what it means for contractor technology. The pattern is consistent: NVIDIA is systematically investing in every major AI application category before the market matures.
Who Wins — and What It Means for Contractors
The honest answer is that both companies can win — they’re not fighting for the same market. The more interesting question is what happens to the construction industry when they both succeed at scale, and what that means for contractors at every tier of the market.
For large commercial general contractors working on infrastructure, data centers, and industrial facilities, autonomous equipment is not a future scenario. It’s a current procurement conversation. The contractors who get on these platforms early — during the supervised autonomy phase — will have the operational data, trained workflows, and crew familiarity to take full advantage when fully unsupervised operation becomes standard. Those who wait will be adopting from scratch against competitors who have two years of operational experience.
For residential and smaller commercial contractors, the timeline is different. As we explore in detail in our guide to the era of the AI-first contractor, the automation wave hitting smaller operators right now is not hardware — it’s software. Lead response, scheduling, estimating, invoicing. The contractors building disciplined AI-powered back offices today will have the operational efficiency to grow into hardware automation when pricing and scale make it accessible. The ones still running paper will be playing catch-up on two fronts simultaneously.
For a broader look at what’s happening across the full landscape of construction AI tools available now, see our AI tools and robotics guide for contractors in 2026.
The Automation That’s Available to You Right Now
The FieldAI vs. Bedrock story is a preview of where construction is going. But the automation that can change your business this week isn’t a $500,000 retrofit kit or a multi-robot coordination platform. It’s the AI that handles your back office while you’re on the job.
Rose is the AI-powered operating system we built specifically for residential contractors — instant lead response, automated scheduling, budget tracking, and 24/7 customer follow-up. The same conviction that’s driving billions into autonomous construction at the enterprise level is what built Rose for the contractor who’s still answering texts at 10pm. You shouldn’t have to choose between doing the work and running the business.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Are FieldAI and Bedrock Robotics competitors?
No. Bedrock Robotics builds hardware autonomy — a retrofit kit that makes physical construction equipment operate without a human operator. FieldAI builds a software coordination layer that directs and manages robots and autonomous machines on a job site, regardless of hardware manufacturer. They are complementary products operating at different layers of the same autonomous construction technology stack.
Why did NVIDIA invest in both FieldAI and Bedrock Robotics?
NVIDIA’s venture arm, NVentures, backed both companies as part of a deliberate thesis about the autonomous construction market. Autonomous construction fleets running computer vision, sensor fusion, and real-time coordination algorithms require enormous GPU compute — exactly the hardware NVIDIA manufactures. Investing in both the hardware autonomy layer (Bedrock) and the software coordination layer (FieldAI) ensures that as the market matures, the infrastructure powering it runs NVIDIA silicon regardless of which architectural approach becomes dominant.
How much has FieldAI raised compared to Bedrock Robotics?
FieldAI raised $405 million in August 2025, making it the largest single contech raise of 2025. Bedrock Robotics raised $270 million in its Series B in February 2026, bringing its total funding to over $350 million at a $1.75 billion valuation. Both rounds included NVIDIA’s venture arm as an investor.
What type of construction projects do these companies target?
Both companies are currently focused on large-scale commercial and infrastructure projects — data centers, manufacturing campuses, port infrastructure, and major earthmoving operations. These are environments where the scale of the project justifies the deployment cost and where 24-hour autonomous operation produces measurable ROI. Neither company’s current technology is positioned for residential construction in the near term.
What does the FieldAI vs. Bedrock story mean for smaller contractors?
The direct implications are limited in the near term — neither technology is priced or designed for residential or small commercial contractors right now. The indirect implications are significant: the capital flowing into construction technology at the enterprise level accelerates the entire ecosystem, including tools accessible to smaller operators today. The practical action for residential and small commercial contractors is to build AI-powered back-office operations now — lead response, scheduling automation, and invoicing systems — so they’re operating efficiently when hardware automation eventually becomes accessible at their scale.
Related Resources
- Bedrock Robotics Valuation Hits $1.75B: The Full Analysis
- Meta’s $10B NVIDIA Deal: What It Means for Contractor Technology
- The Era of the AI-First Contractor Is Here
- AI Tools and Robotics for Contractors: 2026 Guide
- Rose: AI Business Manager for Residential Contractors
- Construction Robotics & AI — All Coverage
Sources:
Construction Dive — Bedrock Series B (Feb. 2026) ·
TechCrunch — Bedrock Stealth Launch (Jul. 2025) ·
Bedrock Press Release (Feb. 2026)
Author: Mike Warner
About the Founder Kore Komfort Solutions is an Army veteran-owned digital platform led by a 30-year veteran of the construction and remodeling trades. After three decades of swinging hammers and managing crews across the United States, I’ve shifted my focus from the job site to the back office. Our New Mission: To help residential contractors move from "chaos" to "profit." We provide honest, field-tested software reviews, operational playbooks, and insights into the AI revolution—empowering the next generation of trade business owners to build companies that last.