A very serious guide to buying your own humanoid robot butler - New Scientist
## What’s on offer? It is fair to say the humanoid robot business has a buzz about it. More than 40 new models were unveiled by companies worldwide in 2025 alone, 60 per cent of which were from China, according to data collated by Morgan Stanley.
Key takeaways
The most recent headlines show humanoid robots moving from laboratory prototypes to commercial deployments across several sectors. On March 18, 2026, Agibot demonstrated large‑scale reliability by staging a fully robot‑led live show, highlighting coordinated performance of dozens of units and confirming that more than 5,000 humanoids had been delivered worldwide by the end of 2025, signaling a shift toward repeatable, scalable supply. At the same time, IntBot announced that its general social‑intelligence engine now powers the Nilo concierge robot, which is operating 24 hours a day in three U.S. hotel chains and can handle multilingual guest interactions, underscoring a focus on hardware‑agnostic, socially aware services. In the consumer market, the San‑Francisco‑based startup Sunday secured a $165 million Series B round that values the company at $1.15 billion as it prepares to launch the household robot Memo for chores such as laundry and table clearing. Meanwhile, automakers continue to test humanoids in factories: BMW is trialling the Hexagon‑developed Aeon robot at its Leipzig plant, and Mercedes‑Benz is investing in Apptronik’s Apollo platform for parts‑moving and inspection tasks. Academic analysis published on March 13 notes that despite advances in vision‑language‑action models and compliant actuation, humanoids still struggle with fine‑motor manipulation of small objects, indicating that technical challenges remain even as commercial use expands.
What’s on offer?
It is fair to say the humanoid robot business has a buzz about it. More than 40 new models were unveiled by companies worldwide in 2025 alone, 60 per cent of which were from China, according to data collated by Morgan Stanley. That’s partly thanks to the rise of powerful artificial intelligence systems that help the robots function – indeed, investor and tech analyst Cathie Wood has called humanoid robots the biggest opportunity for AI to enter our lives. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview last year that, in the future, “you’ll be walking down the street, and there’ll be seven robots walking past you, doing things”. Cryptocurrency investor Andrew Kang has said that “2026 will be the year of humanoid robots”. But things are changing. Last year, machines ran, boxed and even played football at China’s World Humanoid Robot Games, albeit sometimes falling over in the process. Meanwhile, companies have been readying their own range of humanoids that promise to do something a bit more useful: help around the house. At the tail end of last year, robotics company 1X opened preorders for its NEO robot, with deliveries expected this year – a crucial milestone. And with several other companies also now offering humanoid assistants for sale, we are finally living in a world where you can essentially buy yourself a robot butler. There are options out there for a few thousand pounds, less than the price of a small second-hand car.
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