What is physical AI - is it more than just hype?

Physical AI has become a real trend over the past year. At CES (Consumer Electronics Show), NVIDIA's Jensen Huang declared 2026 the "ChatGPT moment for physical AI." Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology published a policy brief ranking it alongside ImageNet (2012) and ChatGPT (2022) as a genuine inflection point. Deloitte and BCG both published major reports on it in 2026. But some call it just a buzzword - a marketing rebrand of robotics work that's been happening for years.