Meet your future robot coworker

March 16, 2025

By Kim Komando

Humanoid robots have come a long way. In 2000, Honda’s $2.5 million ASIMO could barely shuffle along at 1 mph. Now, robots are running, flipping and handling customer service. Let’s dive into the robot revolution.

🦾 Why humanoid bots?

Most robots are one-trick ponies — great at one task but useless everywhere else. The problem? Our world isn’t built for machines; it’s built for us. We climb stairs, twist off bottle caps and reach shelves designed for human hands. 

Crack the code on robots that move and think like us, and suddenly, they can slot into any job. That’s why Elon Musk thinks his Optimus robots could pull in $10 trillion. 

They’ll do anything from mowing your lawn to babysitting. He wants to make several thousand this year. Expect to shell out $20,000 to $30,000 for one.

🤖 Who’s your da-ta?

Education: Van Robotics got turned away by Shark Tank in 2020. Now, their $5,000 robot tutor, ABii, is helping kids learn reading and math in 36 states and seven countries. It’s just 18 inches tall and sits right on your desk. Perfect for eye level.

Health care: Moxi robots make over a million deliveries at 31 hospitals. They’ve saved staff over 1.5 billion steps and 575,000 hours carrying meds and lab samples. The $11,625 a month each is covered by grants.

Hospitality: In Spain, there are the nearly $100K Kime bartenders that whip up 180 drinks an hour. Meanwhile, Japanese restaurant chain Skylark has around 3,000 cat-eared robots delivering food to tables. They might’ve taken up to 15,000 human jobs.

Logistics: Agility Robotics’ 5-foot-9-inch Digit lifts up to 35 pounds. It’s the only robot you can actually buy for warehouses and factories. Companies are paying $30 an hour for ’em. That’s around $62,400 a year, assuming it’s working 40 hours a week.

Security: The $150,000 Eve bots, funded by OpenAI, are doing security duty at a couple of industrial sites. Let’s hope no intruders can outrun its top speed of 9.8 mph.

🏠 Robot, come here

When can a robot serve you breakfast in bed? This year, Nvidia will launch the Jetson Thor to power humanoid robot brains with AI. In a decade, they’ll be as common as your smart speaker. I can’t wait!

I almost forgot to mention the robot that types hundreds of words per minute. It’s just a pro-to-type (I know, I know).