The barrier to AI-powered humanoid robotics just reached a new low.
Industry observers believe a cute robot, developed by the open-source AI powerhouse Hugging Face, could seriously disrupt the robotics world.
It’s among a slew of machines emerging designed to nudge autonomous humanoids into daily life. They could pave the way for walking and talking fake humans to enter healthcare, the workplace, and the home.
Reachy Mini’s Sales Soar
In under 24 hours, Hugging Face says it sold over a thousand of its new AI companion desktop robots.
The Reachy Mini, priced from just under $300, will start shipping late this summer. Standing 28 centimeters (11 inches) tall, the robot is a scaled down version of the full-sized Reachy 2 humanoid by Pollen Robotics, the French startup that Hugging Face acquired earlier this year.
Reachy Mini is equipped with a camera, a microphone, a speaker, and expressive antennas. It can be programmed using Python, and runs apps for face tracking, speech recognition, and generative AI. The robot’s head moves in six directions, and its body can fully rotate.
It comes as a kit for DIY assembly. It connects to Hugging Face’s Hub for sharing and exploring apps, and users can develop custom apps with an SDK and simulator.
The robot is marketed toward developers, educators, students, and AI enthusiasts. It works out the box with more than 15 robot behaviors installed at launch. Hugging Face says the open-source project will grow as its community contributes new behaviors, apps, and tools.
The hardware acts as an entry point into Hugging Face’s open-source LeRobot platform, where users can download, run, and share robot behaviors. It connects with LeRobot’s models, datasets, and frameworks designed for real-world robotics.
There are two versions available. The Lite edition costs $299 and connects to a computer for power and processing. The Wireless version is $449 and includes onboard computing and a battery.
On the X social media platform, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf reported nearly $500K in sales the day after preorders opened. That figure suggests Hugging Face sold between 1,100 and 1,700 Reachy Mini units, depending on the mix of Lite and Wireless versions. If every robot sold was the more expensive option, it would amount to 1,113 units.
“We knew this product was special (everyone on the team wanted one), but the response has been even more overwhelming than expected,” he said.
Anyone who ordered the robot before July 12, 2025 will get to pick their Reachy Mini’s color from over 16 choices. Hugging Face will start shipping the Lite version by late summer and the higher-end version in the fall. Production will be in batches and is expected to continue into 2026.
The full-sized Reachy 2 is also available to purchase, but with a much larger price tag of around $70K. The research platform features dual arms with 7 degrees of freedom (DoF), a mobile base, and bio-inspired joints for expressive movements. The Reachy 2 is moderately priced compared to other full-sized humanoid platforms in its class that often cost into the six figures.
Hugging Face is also developing a budget full-sized robotic humanoid with the London firm The Robot Studio that’s expected to be priced around $3,000. The robot, named HopeJR, is built with off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts. It has a reported 66 DoF for complex movements, bipedal locomotion, and object manipulation. That robot is expected to start shipping later in 2025.
Sam the AI Healthcare Robot
Meanwhile in San Francisco, a group of young entrepreneurs is developing Sam the Robot to address the growing need for scalable eldercare in the US.
According to US Census Bureau projections, the country’s senior citizen population will hit 73 million by 2030, the year that every baby boomer will be 65 or older. At the same time, the shortage of direct-care workers is expected to grow to 151K by 2030 and 355K by 2040.
The AI-powered healthcare robot Sam acts as a 24/7 caretaker, guiding seniors through medication schedules and exercise routines. Sam moves on wheels and immediately notifies caregivers if it detects pain or illness. They’ve offered 15 units for beta testing.
The team has accelerated the robot’s development at Founders Inc., a hardware-first startup incubator focused on artificial intelligence and robotics.
PAL’s TIAgo
In Barcelona, PAL Robotics just unveiled its TIAGo Head platform for human-robot interaction research.
The Spanish robotics firm, founded in 2004, is known for developing Europe’s first fully autonomous bipedal robot. TIAGo is an acronym coined by PAL , that stands for Take It and Go. PAL Robotics introduced its first TIAgo robot, a mobile manipulator, back in 2015.
The TIAGO robotic head, standing 46 centimeters, has 2 DoF and can understand human emotions and gestures with its real-time face and 3D skeleton tracking. Its onboard AI supports more than 20 languages.
Its LEDs and facial expressions are customizable.
According to PAL Robotics, the TIAGo Head is easy to program, with no-code tools, an intuitive web interface, and support for ROS 2, open APIs and Python. Powered by an Intel i7 processor, the TIAGo Head has a 10 -inch touchscreen display, a camera, and 4 microphones and speakers.
Pricing ranges from around $8,500 to more than $21K. Custom painting is available on demand.
AheadForm’s Chappie
In China, a growing number of startups are emerging that are focused on next-generation AI companion busts.
AheadForm, launched in 2024 by Columbia PhD Yuhang Hu, developed a robotic head inspired by the 2015 cult hit Chappie. In the Neill Blomkamp film, Chappie is a damaged police robot that evolves into a self-aware and emotionally intelligent being after an experimental AI upload lets him learn, feel, and grow like a human child.
AheadForm says it developed the Chappie replica from scratch. They’re developing the robot to be more than a homage, but as a machine that talks to humans like the titular robot.
AheadForm’s AI combines vision language and large language models to help robots understand both what they see and what they’re told. The multimodal learning system processes text, speech, and visual input together for more human-like understanding. The robot’s AI brain is capable of real-time conversations, facial expressions, emotional recognition, and context-aware responses.
AheadForm has gone viral for its lifelike creations, like its humanoid head from its Real Elf series that features 30 artificial muscles. AheadForm does not list its prices publicly.
Ameca vs Annie
Another Chinese firm, AnyWit Robotics, is rushing to commercialize its desktop Anni android heads that bear a striking resemblance to Ameca, the world-famous humanoid robot from Engineered Arts. Read all about that here. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for first updates.