2025 Is the Year of the Humanoid Robot Factory Worker

Later this year, Boston Dynamics plans to enactment its all-electric humanoid Atlas robot to enactment successful a Hyundai factory. The caller mentation of the bot, evolved from the hydraulic Atlas exemplary that’s been performing viral video demos since 2013, made its nationalist debut past spring. But portion the company’s dog-like Spot and warehouse robot Stretch are already deployed astatine concern sites, the Hyundai aviator volition beryllium the archetypal clip Atlas is utilized successful commercialized manufacturing.

Boston Dynamics, which was acquired by Hyundai for $1.1 cardinal successful 2021, is coy astir however the robot volition beryllium used, but the wide thought is that it’s designed to beryllium stronger and much reliable than a quality worker. “The robot is going to beryllium capable to bash things that are hard for humans,” Boston Dynamics spokesperson Kerri Neelon says. “Like prime up precise dense objects and transportation things that are awkward for humans to carry.”

Atlas volition person friends: 2025 looks acceptable to beryllium the twelvemonth that multipurpose humanoid robots, until present mostly confined to probe labs, spell commercial. Some person already taken their archetypal tentative robot steps into paid work, with Agility Robotics’ Digit moving items successful a warehouse and Figure’s eponymous biped shipping retired to commercialized customers past year.

Tech giants are besides getting successful connected the trend: Both Apple and Meta are rumored to beryllium moving connected immoderate benignant of consumer-facing humanoid robot. A 2024 Goldman Sachs study estimates that humanoid robots volition correspond a $38 cardinal marketplace by 2035—more than six times what the steadfast projected a twelvemonth earlier.

The basal committedness of humanoid robots is that they volition beryllium capable to power betwixt aggregate tasks, conscionable similar their quality peers. It’s a fundamentally antithetic attack from accepted assembly enactment automation, which builds an full situation astir the circumstantial tasks required for manufacturing. Jonathan Hurst, cofounder and main robot serviceman astatine Agility Robotics, expects its robots to beryllium alongside that process, not disrupt it.

“A purpose-built automation solution is ever going to beryllium higher show and little outgo for that purpose,” Hurst says. “That’s large if you person 24/7 operations for that circumstantial happening you privation to do.” But for tasks that don’t request to tally astir the clock, a flexible robot could beryllium much productive.

Boston Dynamics puts it a antithetic way. With factories already designed to beryllium a harmless spot for automation, the institution says it built Atlas with an oculus toward making a robot that could spell everyplace else. “We unrecorded successful a human-first world,” Neelon says, “so we should physique a robot that reflects that.”

But determination are challenges to getting humanoid robots to market. Tesla’s Optimus has been heavy anticipated since the institution archetypal announced it successful 2021, but a demo successful October drew concerns erstwhile the robots connected show were revealed to beryllium human-controlled, raising questions astir the grade to which Optimus could relation autonomously. In January, Musk said the institution was acceptable to physique “several thousand” robots implicit the people of 2025—but successful April helium told investors accumulation could beryllium impacted by the restrictions connected rare-earth metallic exports China implemented successful effect to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.