Humanoids are coming home

Would you like a humanoid robot in your home to cook, clean, vacuum, and maybe even take the dog for a walk or care for an aged relative? If so, you're not alone. For more than 60 years, the dream of a household robot has been remarkably consistent. From Rosie in The Jetsons to countless science fiction films, the promise has been the same: a humanoid helper that handles the dishes, folds the laundry and takes care of everyday chores while families spend more time together.

Recently, I jumped on NBC News to talk about it with host Gadi Schwarz:

The Jetson's aside, the truth is that for decades, the technology simply wasn’t ready.

That's now finally changing. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, improved dexterous hands, better vision systems, and more capable robotics hardware are pushing humanoid robots into factories and warehouses and ... yes ... even into homes.

It's not quite there yet, but it's close. We literally have people now who have humanoids in their homes, but most of them are employees of humanoid robot makers. For the rest of us, I think we’re now close to an “iPhone moment” or “ChatGPT moment” for humanoid robotics in homes. 

Which doesn’t mean every household will immediately buy one, but it does mean consumers will soon see robots transition from impressive demonstrations to genuinely useful products.

The shift is becoming increasingly visible across the industry. 

While Tesla and most other humanoid robot companies continue to position their robots primarily for industrial work, several robotics companies are designing humanoids specifically for residential environments, where the technical challenges are significantly greater but the potential market is vastly larger.

One of the clearest examples is 1X Technologies. 

Backed by OpenAI’s Startup Fund, the company has built NEO as a home-first humanoid robot. Unlike industrial robots built for predictable factory floors, NEO is designed to navigate kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms while interacting safely around people. Its lightweight frame, soft exterior and compliant actuators reflect that mission. 

Rather than promising complete autonomy from day one, 1X has embraced a gradual deployment strategy in which robots perform an increasing number of household tasks independently while remote operators can step in when necessary. 

As the AI improves, those interventions are expected to become increasingly rare.

Figure AI has also begun shifting its attention toward the home. 

After demonstrating its robots in manufacturing environments, including deployments with BMW, the company recently introduced Figure 03, a redesigned humanoid built around its Helix vision-language-action AI model. The new robot features upgraded hands with tactile sensing, improved perception, wireless charging and a softer, more refined exterior intended for operation around people. 

According to Figure, the redesign was driven by three priorities: enabling more capable AI, preparing robots for household environments, and simplifying manufacturing at scale.

Those moves reflect a broader realization across the industry. Factories remain an attractive early market because they are structured, repetitive, and economically straightforward. 

Homes are none of those things.

Every house is different. Kitchens are organized differently. Laundry piles vary from day to day. Children leave toys on the floor. Pets wander unpredictably. Lighting changes throughout the day. A robot capable of succeeding in that environment must understand unfamiliar objects, recover from mistakes, and adapt continuously instead of repeating the same programmed sequence.

That is why viral robot videos can create the wrong impression. 

Dancing, backflips and choreographed routines make for fun demos, but they don't show much about whether a robot can consistently complete useful work. I'm not spending tens of thousands of dollars for a robot that can dance, and I'm assuming you're the same. But I will be tempted to buy one if it can unload the dishwasher without breaking the plates, fold laundry correctly, clean the kitchen, and reliably handle dozens of small household tasks every day.

Price will also determine how quickly the market develops. 

Early humanoids are likely to cost somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000, roughly the price of a car. Some will be six figures. Financing and subscription models will make adoption more accessible, potentially bringing monthly costs into the range of a typical car payment, or less. And as manufacturing scales and component costs fall, prices should decline, opening the market to a much broader range of consumers.

The opportunity extends well beyond convenience. 

As Schwarz mentions in the piece above, stay-at-home parents perform roughly 200 hours of unpaid household labor each month, work that's worth thousands of dollars. Humanoid robots capable of taking over even part of that workload could fundamentally change how families spend their time. Whether that time ultimately goes toward more work, more leisure, or simply more time together may prove just as important as the technology itself.

More than 400 companies worldwide are now developing humanoid robotics technology, and roughly half are based in China. The race is accelerating, investment continues to pour in, and the pace of technical progress has increased dramatically over the past two years.

For decades, the household robot has remained one of technology’s most enduring promises. 

For the first time, it appears to be moving from science fiction toward commercial reality. The remaining question isn’t whether humanoid robots will eventually enter our homes. It’s which company will be the first to build one that’s genuinely useful once it gets there.