If you’re worried about humanoid robots taking your job in 2025, rest easy. The few commercially available models are slow, ponderous and best suited to menial jobs that humans hate — think lifting a 20-pound (9 kilograms) object onto a conveyor belt.
But things are set to change. By the end of this decade, many experts think humanoid robots will have evolved — if that’s the right word — into genuinely useful members of the workforce. They will likely be faster than humans, work longer hours and have higher reasoning abilities than the best AI chatbots. Per year, they will also cost less.
If you’re cynical about all this, you’re right to be. Up until this point, companies have made many claims they’ve struggled to meet. What’s more, only one humanoid robot in our seven-strong list is currently on active working duty.
Despite this, it’s still likely that in five years’ time we will see humanoid robots on sale that combine the dexterity of Atlas, the emotional connection of Ameca, the hand skills of Phoenix, the brains of Figure 02 and the style of Optimus. Here are seven robots that pushed the boundaries in 2024.
The co-founders of Apptronik worked on the NASA Valkyrie robot project in 2012 to 2013. From that star-studded heritage comes Apollo, a general purpose humanoid robot that stands 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 meters) tall.
It’s “general purpose” because Apollo could just as easily look after the elderly as work in a factory, with an Nvidia partnership enabling it to use artificial intelligence (AI) to learn skills just by observing humans performing tasks. But that’s the future. For now, Apollo is at the prototype stage, although Apptronik is partnering with Mercedes-Benz to test scenarios in its factories.
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