Humanoid Robots Perform Narrow Tasks at Trade Shows While General-Purpose Use Remains Distant

Humanoid robots demonstrated at recent trade shows can mix drinks, jog short distances and fold laundry, yet remain limited to narrow tasks or remote human control, according to builders speaking at the Robotics Summit in Boston in late May. A Unitree G1 Humanoid Robot appeared at London Tech Week at Olympia earlier this month.

Elon Musk’s Optimus prototype was recently filmed jogging in short strides.

Figure 03, developed by Figure AI, can tidy and clean a living room by itself. China’s AgiBot and Matrix Robotics claim their machines can greet visitors, serve coffee and give tours. “Most of the humanoids you see are being teleoperated, or they’ve got very specific paths and chores that they do,” Chris Matthieu of RealSense said.

Neo, launched by 1X last October and billed as “the world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot designed to transform life at home,” was steered by a person off to the side during its demonstration. Progress stems from advances in artificial intelligence. “I think AI has extremely accelerated that growth,” William Okazaki of Renesas said.

Vision-language-action models combine written instructions with real-time camera input, allowing robots to connect what they see to what they should do. A separate “world model” trained on large volumes of images and video can predict how objects will behave when touched or moved. Hands remain a technical focus.

Some sensors now detect contact with human skin, and robots can grip objects with a delicate touch. Boston Dynamics’ Atlas operates at Hyundai and Hexagon Robotics’ AEON works at a BMW site, though both remain trials rather than commercial products. “For general purpose robots, it will take longer,” Daniel Fan of Innodisk said.