About Menlo
Menlo is an open R&D lab in pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence, that achieves real-world impact through agents and robots.
Menlo Park , 1876 — the world’s first invention lab. A place where ideas became tools.
We believe general intelligence will come from systems that learn, act, and improve in the world across form factors, environments, and interfaces. We’re making general intelligence legible, hackable, and grounded in reality.
Why We Exist
Breakthrough technologies need more than raw discovery. They need invention labs; places where theory meets practice, and where ideas become tools.
In 1876, Thomas Edison built Menlo Park , the world’s first true invention lab. It wasn’t just about chasing patents, it was about turning electricity into something useful, accessible, and world-changing.
Today, intelligence is that new electricity. Menlo Research exists to make it useful, open, and humanity-aligned.
What We Believe
We believe general intelligence will emerge from systems that learn, adapt, and improve through use.
We see a future where:
- Intelligence is embedded in devices and environments
- Agents become the interface layer for how people interact with machines
- Systems are open, self-hostable, and user-owned
- Communities help shape how intelligence evolves
We are optimistic that intelligence can be a force for good, if we all build it with care and in the open.
Where We’re Headed
We’re building the full stack of general intelligence from consumer-facing apps and APIs to infrastructure, hardware, and eventually model training:
- Jan – General agent (desktop + mobile), the foundation of our deployment and feedback loop
- Jade – Ambient intelligence for context, perception, and environmental awareness
- Menlo API – Developer platform to build and run intelligent agents, open and self-hostable
- Robotics (R&D) – Exploring embodied systems that can move, sense, and act
Like Edison’s Menlo Park, we’re building a lab where today’s ideas become tomorrow’s tools. Like every true invention lab, we don’t pretend to have all the answers. We build, test, learn, and iterate — until intelligence becomes something people can trust, own, and use.