I've Seen It With My Own Eyes: The Robots Are Here and Walking Among Us - CNET
This momentum extends to the next generation of Humanoid's robots, where Sokolov doesn't foresee any real bottlenecks. The main factors dictating the pace will be improvements in AI models and making the hardware more reliable and cost effective.
Key takeaways
The most recent reports show that commercial deployments of humanoid robots are finally gaining scale, with global installations reaching about 16,000 units in 2025—a 31 percent share for Shanghai‑based AgiBot and a combined 73 percent of all units held by the top five suppliers, including Unitree, UBTech, Leju and Tesla, which entered the top five with roughly 5 percent market share. Chinese firms are also expanding business models, launching robot‑as‑a‑service rentals for live performances, retail and promotions, while lower‑cost platforms aimed at interaction rather than heavy industrial work are emerging. In the United States, Boston Dynamics demonstrated its Atlas humanoid performing tasks at Hyundai’s new Georgia plant, and the company announced a partnership with DeepMind to integrate Gemini foundation models into Atlas. At CES 2026, the British startup Humanoid unveiled its HMND 01 biped, claiming 25,000 pre‑orders and successful pilots with six Fortune 500 firms. Meanwhile, Chinese EV‑maker XPeng’s first public showcase of its IRON humanoid ended in a face‑first fall, underscoring the persistent reliability challenges that industry insiders say still separate prototype hype from economically viable, safe deployment in uncontrolled environments.
This momentum extends to the next generation of Humanoid's robots, where Sokolov doesn't foresee any real bottlenecks. The main factors dictating the pace will be improvements in AI models and making the hardware more reliable and cost effective.
Humanoid hype hits its peak
Humanoid the company might have the rights to the name, but the concept of humanoids is a wider domain.
By the end of last year, the commercialization of humanoid robots had entered an "explosive phase of growth," with a 508% year-on-year increase in global market revenue to $440 million, according to a report released") by IDC this month. But that opportunity also extends to start-ups. Featured prominently at the CES 2026 booth of German automotive company Schaeffler was the year-and-a-half-old British company Humanoid, demonstrating the capabilities of its robot HMND 01.
The wheeled robot was built in just seven months Artem Sokolov, Humanoid's CEO, told me, as we watch it sort car parts with its pincerlike hands. "We built our bipedal one for service and household much faster -- in five months," Sokolov added.
Humanoid's speed can be accounted for by the AI boom plus an influx of talent recruited from top robotics companies, said Sokolov. The company has already signed around 25,000 preorders for HMND 01 and completed pilots with six Fortune 500 companies, he said. In fact, as cute as they often are and as fun as they can be to interact with on the show floor, most robots I've seen at CES over the years amount to little more than gimmicks. They either come back year after year with no notable improvements or are never seen or heard from again.
In more than a decade of covering the show, I've been waiting for a shift to occur. In 2026, I finally witnessed it. From Hyundai unveiling the final product version of the Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid robot in its press conference to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's focus on "physical AI" during his keynote, a sea change was evident this year in how people were talking about robots.
Watch this: Atlas Has Left the Lab! In-Person Demo of Boston Dynamics Humanoid
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