The flow from perception AI to physical AI can be understood as a journey towards increasingly sophisticated and embodied intelligence:

1. Perception AI: This is the foundation. It focuses on enabling AI to perceive and understand the world through data. This includes computer vision (understanding images and videos), natural language processing (understanding text and speech), and other sensory inputs. Perception AI allows machines to "see" and "hear" like humans, but without necessarily understanding the meaning or context.

2. Generative AI: Building upon perception, generative AI enables machines to create new content, such as text, images, music, and even code. This involves learning the underlying patterns and structures in data and then generating new data that follows those patterns. Generative AI allows machines to not only perceive but also create still largely within the digital realm.

3. Agentic AI: This is where AI starts to become truly "intelligent" in the sense of being able to make decisions and take action. Agentic AI combines perception and generation with reasoning and planning capabilities. AI agents can perceive their environment, understand the context, set goals, and then take actions to achieve those goals. This is a crucial step towards AI systems that can operate autonomously and solve complex problems.

4. Physical AI: This is the culmination of the journey, where AI is embodied in physical systems like robots. Physical AI combines perception, generation, and agentic AI with the ability to interact with the physical world. Robots equipped with physical AI can perceive their surroundings, understand the tasks they need to perform, plan their actions, and then execute those actions in the real world. This allows AI to directly impact the physical world, automating tasks, improving efficiency, and even exploring new frontiers.

This flow represents a gradual progression towards more sophisticated and embodied AI systems. Each stage builds upon the previous one, adding new capabilities and expanding the potential applications of AI. While each stage has its unique applications, they also work together to create more powerful and versatile AI systems.