Autonomous Construction Sites and AI-Powered Heavy Equipment with Bedrock Robotics

Boris Sofman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bedrock Robotics, a company turning existing construction equipment into fully autonomous fleets through same-day hardware upfits. With over $80 million in funding from Eclipse, 8VC, NVIDIA Ventures, and former Waymo CEO John Krafcik, Bedrock is tackling a major bottleneck in the global economy: a massive construction labor shortage just as demand for data centers, clean energy projects, housing, and manufacturing is skyrocketing.

 In this episode, Boris shares how his experience building autonomous vehicles at Waymo inspired him to apply similar AI and machine learning approaches to heavy equipment. He explains why full autonomy matters in construction, what it unlocks for efficiency and safety, and how Bedrock plans to accelerate infrastructure and industrial development through robotic automation.

Episode recorded on Sept 30, 2025 (Published on Nov 13, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [02:45] Boris’s background in robotics and autonomous vehicles
• [04:50] Learnings from Waymo applied to construction
• [10:09] Boris’s predictions for autonomous vehicles in the future
• [18:44] Why he left Waymo to start Bedrock Robotics
• [22:59] Choosing construction as the first market for autonomy
• [25:26] How Bedrock upfits machines without permanent modifications
• [26:25] Why excavators are the first target use case
• [28:20] Training AI to navigate changing job site environments
• [30:54] Skipping teleoperation and going straight to autonomy
• [35:52] Bedrock’s GTM focus on heavy industrial sectors
• [40:46] How to work with traditional industries effectively
• [43:55] How autonomy solves labor shortages and safety challenges

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant