Former Pokémon Go owner Niantic announced last week that it will be using the data generated by millions of users to assist AI delivery bots. Whether all those players explicitly consented or not, the company is partnering with Coco Robotics ahead of its new generation of bots, coming soon to the streets of Los Angeles.
Those in the Venn diagram intersection between "Pokémon fans" and "AI haters" are not happy.
Pokémon Go was free for a reason
Back in 2016, the sensation known as Pokémon Go drew over 500 million app downloads and filled parks with excited fans. Health experts praised the game for getting people outside, and Democrats did that "Pokémon Go to the polls" thing. It was a huge deal.
Part of the reason there so many signups was that the base game was free. Today, former and current players are getting a sharp reminder of the old axim—if an app is free, you're the product.
Niantic Spatial announced its partnership with Coco on March 10, revealing that it would use the mass amounts of real-world data gathered from photos people took of their Pokémon to fuel its spatial AI and "Visual Positioning System (VPS)."
Those pictures allowed Niantic to craft a virtual world that can guide Coco's delivery robots through chaotic city streets to people's doorsteps.
"We’re excited to bring the Niantic Spatial and Coco Robotics engineering teams together in this unique design partnership," said Coco CEO Zach Rash. "It gives us reliable access to localization services that further improve robot navigation."
"Looking ahead, we’ll jointly explore new ways to enable Coco’s robots to operate with increasing safety and autonomy in any city."
This helps explain why Niantic launched that "Field Research" feature in 2020 that offered players rewards for scanning and photographing their surroundings. According to the MIT Technology Review, Coco's bots will be trained on 30 billion images collected by Niantic through all those millions of users.
"Literally gamified unpaid data labeling"
Delivery robots have been around for a while now, but news of any new line launch tends to be met with threats of destruction. In September 2025, people declared intentions to hamper or attack "Dot," the DoorDash delivery bot.
The crossover between annoying little robots clogging up sidewalks and anger over tech companies constantly coercing us into letting them extract mass amounts of our data is creating a new level of fury.
It's like we were all unpaid interns and didn't know it.
"In case you were wondering why Niantic's Pokémon Go was free," wrote @vicgasco. "Users generated billions in data for them."
User @cryptopunk7213 marveled at how Niantic "literally gamified unpaid data labeling and turned that into a very valuable asset for AI."
"Youre a slave and dont even know it," said right-wing personality Tim Pool.
The privacy-focused company Proton VPN lamented that "nothing is sacred."
"I NOW understand why Niantic Sold to the Saudi Government/Scopely for $3.5B," wrote game developer @TheCartelDel. "Thank you for your hard work, Pokémon trainers."
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