Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made the company’s Optimus robot a central tenet of its future business strategy. Just last month, Musk predicted money will no longer exist in the future and work will be optional within the next 10 to 20 years thanks to a fully fledged robotic workforce.

Computer-use agents and self-clicking AI browsers make for great demos but struggle to offer obvious utility to most people. One might argue for a different path to broadly useful and flexible AI agents,

Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.

Stanford researchers have become the first to demonstrate that machine-learning control can safely guide a robot aboard the ISS, laying the groundwork for more autonomous space missions.

Ballie has been promised to us multiple times over the last few years, but we're still waiting to see if it becomes a real product.

Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.

But the tone and pizzazz of IREX has always been provided by the humanoids. It’s a somehow thrilling spectacle to see robots that look a bit like us, sort of doing things we can do, with the half plea, half promise that they will do so much more — and better — in the indefinite future.

Want to get your own? You can shop this post-Cyber Monday sale holdover at Amazon, where the Eureka E20 Plus Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo is up for grabs at just $310, normally $450. That’s a discount of $140 and 31% off.

The first units are expected to ship to customers in the US in 2026. There is a $499 monthly subscription alternative to the $20,000 full purchase price, although it will be available at an unspecified later date. A broader international rollout is promised for 2027.