AI Research Intern

What you'd do

• Conduct research and development on AI technology for surgical robotics, specifically integrating visual data (endoscopic video), surgical context (language/data), and precise robotic actions (instrument control).
• Develop and implement novel algorithms for VLA models focused on surgical scene understanding, procedure phase recognition, and learning from expert demonstrations (e.g., imitation learning) to improve system guidance and automation features.
• Analyze and process large, real-world surgical datasets from the da Vinci system to train and evaluate AI models.
• Validate models using both internal simulation platforms and, where appropriate, physical da Vinci systems, adhering to strict quality and regulatory protocols.
• Collaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and potentially even clinicians/surgeons, to translate research prototypes into robust, testable software solutions.
• Document research outcomes and contribute to technical reports and internal documentation, with potential opportunities for patent filings or conference submissions.

What they want

• University Enrollment: Must be currently enrolled in and returning to an accredited degree-seeking academic program in the Fall.
• Internship Work Period: Must be available to work starting January 2027 and full-time (approximately 40 hours per week) during a 10-12 week period.
• Specific start dates are shared during the recruiting process.Required Education and Training
• Current enrollment in an Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Robotics with emphasis on AI, Machine Learning and Computer Vision or related degree-seeking program at the Master’s or Doctorate level.Preferred Skills and Experience
• Publications in top-tier conferences/journals
• Experience building systems based on machine learning and/or deep learning methods.
• Strong hands-on Python skills.
• Strong hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks such PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Caffe.Good hands-on experience with the state-of-the-art deep learning models for language modelling and text retrieval of structured and unstructured text.
• Self-starter and able to work in a collaborative and results oriented environment.
• (Preferred) Experience extending and innovating on LLM/AI agent techniques. Experience in one or more of RLHF, DPO, finetuning, RAG, CoT, and multi-agent reasoning.
• (Preferred) Experience with model quantization, LLM edge hardware deployment, prompt engineering, and/or data synthesis. Robotics, action models, large language models (LLM), visual language models (VLM)

About Intuitive Surgical · Engineering

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide. We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and…