At CES 2025, you really couldn’t avoid the humanoid hype. Humanoid robots were everywhere.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared the stage with a bunch of robots.
Huang said AI and robotics will go together and will advance the industry. He noted that there will be more than humanoid robots. “The next era for robotic systems is going to be robots, and these robots are going to come in all kinds of different sizes,” he said.
AMD CEO Lisa Su brought on Generative Bionics CEO Daniele Pucci. Generative Bionics is a spin-off of the Italian Institute of Technology. Humanoid robots were the ultimate in keynote crutches.
Pucci argued that AI can sense the world but robotics can enable it to experience it.
Boston Dynamics also introduced the latest version of its Atlas humanoid robot. CES 2026 was a parade of humanoids with a few even offering cleaning services.
And now for the reality check via Constellation Research’s Chief Distiller Esteban Kolsky. In his recent newsletter designed for boards of directors, Kolsky dissed the humanoid construct for robots. Kolsky is clear that AI and robotics are going to combine and deliver enterprise value.
But the humanoid form factor makes no sense. Kolsky said: “Let’s get the ugliest part of this out of here: humanoid robots are the worst possible path we can take. Despite Hollywood’s love of anthropomorphized animatronics, there are many deficiencies in human-shaped and look-alike robot.”
For starters, the human body isn’t efficient. If humans were starting from scratch we wouldn’t have engineered this system. Why spend billions trying to replicate (poorly in most cases) a human with a robot? In addition, humans don’t adapt well to new environments. Guess what? Humanoid robots don’t either.
Here’s a video of Kolsky riffing on humanoids.
