Promise Robotics signs D.R. Horton to robot-build parts for 1,250+ homes

In short: A multi-year deal brings robotic prefabrication to the biggest U.S. homebuilder by volume. D.R. Horton is the first major U.S. builder on Promise's platform.

How it works

• Factory-as-a-Service (FaaS): builders buy production capacity instead of building their own factories.
• Software reads existing home designs, generates robot instructions and orchestrates manufacturing of floors (up to 45 ft), walls (20 ft, with windows and doors) and drop-in stair cages.
• Runs on KUKA arms today but is robot-agnostic; uses computer vision, LLMs for data prep and a domain-specific reasoning model.
• First facilities: Edmonton, Calgary and Phoenix.

CEO Ramtin Attar says the system can build the structure of a two-story two-family home with basement and garage in a day, versus two to three weeks typically (excluding electrical, windows and plumbing).

Why it matters

Every house is different, which is why construction resisted automation. Promise treats variability as a software problem. If it works at D.R. Horton's scale, construction could become one of physical AI's biggest markets.