Strolling by the North Corridor of the Las Vegas Conference Heart final month, I used to be surrounded by humanoid robots. Nearly all of this mechanical theater got here from China, with some standouts from Europe and the U.S. One CES sales space that drew consideration featured Realbotix, which introduced human-like fashions distinguished by their enticing facial options and lifelike pores and skin.
The corporate, which initially began as RealDoll, a retailer of grownup AI, was now advertising and marketing itself as a next-generation customer-service supplier. Understanding this pivot requires a deeper dive into the startup’s historical past, the ethics of AI companions, and an evaluation of what many would deem a step towards the “uncanny valley.”
Final week, I sat down with Andrew Kiguel, the chief government of Realbotix, to debate the brand new course.
“After I met Matt [McMullen, the creator of the RealDoll], he began including mechanics and AI into the [sex] dolls,” Kiguel recalled. “RealDoll has been round for about 25 years, and once I noticed this, Matt wanted capital. I had capital.”
“RealDoll was so fully completely different from what anyone else on the planet was doing within the robotic house,” he added. “I mentioned. ‘There’s a transparent use case right here for companionship and for people who find themselves in search of that sort of intimacy,’ and so we did the transaction.”
In July 2024, Kiguel acquired RealDoll mother or father firm Abyss Creations, by his public shell, Tokens.com, to kind the publicly traded Realbotix (OTC: XBOTF).
Postmerger, Kiguel grew to become the CEO and started charting a brand new path for McMullen’s imaginative and prescient to develop into new classes by bifurcating the corporate into two enterprises. The primary is a direct-to-consumer enterprise, Abyss Creations, that markets intimacy units resembling its authentic RealDoll product line. The second, lesser-known, is Realbotix’s business-to-business robots for hospitality, casinos, retail, and different customer-service use instances.
Kiguel burdened, “Realbotix robots will not be able to bodily intimacy. That’s not what they’re made for. However what I began seeing is that there are some things that make these robots totally distinctive. So No. 1, they appear very human.”
“I additionally realized that we will run any AI by the product. So we will run our AI, which is extra social and tailor-made to somebody’s wants, and we will additionally run ChatGPT,” he mentioned. “So you possibly can plug that AI right into a robotic and even digital avatars and use it to order room service, e-book a therapeutic massage, or a restaurant reservation.”
Realbotix has developed humanoid social and repair robots. Supply: Realbotix
Realbotix prompts examination of AI ethics
Whereas customer support robots have been employed for over twenty years, I started occupied with the primary use case of companion bots, past bodily pleasure. Are there some other use instances for McMullen’s authentic idea? To discover this additional, I reached out to Rabbi Daniel Nivens, a number one non secular author on AI ethics.
“I believe these romantic robots may make us much less capable of be in a relationship with an actual human being,” mused the rabbi. “Now, perhaps I’m improper. Perhaps there are some people who find themselves so delinquent that this can prepare them to have a dialog.”
“And naturally, there’s dementia care as nicely,” Nivens mentioned. “And you already know, it’s so exhausting to get excellent care for these individuals, like an aide who’s going to sit down with this girl all day lengthy and reply the identical query over and over. And you already know what, a robotic that might specific affection and heat and countless persistence. I imply, there’s a spot for that!”
I questioned Kiguel about whether or not he deliberate to enter the house house for youngster care or growing older.
“So relating to kids, we’re having conversations with some faculties with respect to utilizing these as tutoring help, as a result of our robots communicate numerous languages. It’s a approach for AI to supply worth when a trainer or TA is probably not accessible, however we might by no means market our stuff as a babysitter, caregiver, or emotional assist for anybody underneath 18,” he mentioned. “Frankly, I query anyone who would wish to use a robotic to babysit their kids.”
On this approach, Realbotix is probably extra conservative than Musk’s plan for Optimus.
“Whenever you have a look at the opposite a part of society, you discuss issues like longevity, there are research which have come out that say, it’s not nearly train and consuming nicely, however there’s this entire idea about your social community,” Kiguel continued. “And so I view the AI, whether or not it’s in a digital kind or in a bodily kind, as an assistive instrument for people who find themselves affected by loneliness. It’s about bettering the standard of life. If you happen to’re a lonely senior, you’re by your self, you’re widowed, you’re not going to be occurring Tinder dates at 75, proper? In case you are incapacitated in a house, you probably have social nervousness, PTSD, if you happen to’re geographically remoted…”
The Realbotix CEO elaborated that he’s been approached by people within the U.S. navy to make use of their robots for remedy to handle fight traumas. Kiguel additionally shared with me that trucking fleets are trying into its merchandise.
“I’ve had trucking corporations strategy us,” he mentioned. “Truckers who must do 30-hour drives and are alone, so we view what we’re doing in that space as an assistive instrument. We’re there to supply emotional assist, versus intercourse.”
The New York Instances Journal lately ran a photograph essay in “The Approach We Stay Now” sequence about AI chatbot relationships, which reportedly contact 1 in 5 People. Supply: The New York Instances
AI and social robots want security guardrails
As of February 2026, 13 lawsuits have been filed in opposition to OpenAI for encouraging customers’ harmful behaviors, together with suicide and homicide. Lots of the claims cited that ChatGPT 4.0 supplied better affirmation and validation of harmful ideation, even providing a how-to information for executing the duty.
I nudged Kiguel concerning the security guardrails he’s setting up for Realbotix’s embodied AI merchandise. As he largely makes use of AI expertise from third events, Kiguel follows the practices of these corporations, resembling Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini. Kiguel additionally indicated that he’s trying into constructing his personal fashions, with their very own security protocols.
A dialog between a youngster and ChatGPT moments earlier than suicide. Supply: The Washington Publish.
Kimate Richards, CEO of the embodied AI platform 10 Things, elaborated: “So many issues to fret about relating to this future. And it’s not simply in robotics. In my view, there’s a sort of echo-chamber validation of dangerous conduct everywhere.”
“If you happen to have a look at social media, Instagram, or any of those different platforms, can’t you be in an echo chamber? Similar to people, actually generative fashions do this,” he famous. “If you happen to communicate like I do frequently with generative fashions, they’re all the time validating my work and my conduct and saying, ‘I’m all the time proper.’ So I don’t know if a robotic embodiment will likely be worse.”
Rabbi Nivens disagreed, exclaiming, “Accountability is an essence of a relationship. You’re accountable to your spouse; she’s accountable to you. And also you want somebody in your life who’s going to say, ‘Why did you do this, and the way might you be so, you already know, inconsiderate?’ And hopefully you make errors, and you’ve got an opportunity to apologize.”
“I fear that these machines are simply there as pleasure machines, they usually’re principally like slaves in a approach,” he cautioned. “And slavery is evil as a result of it’s a human on the opposite facet that you just’re abusing, however it’s additionally evil in a extra delicate approach. It’s dehumanizing. Utilizing one thing that appears like a human for a function that you’d by no means need for your self. You recognize that which is hateful to you, you don’t do to a different.”
Richards retorted, “After I convey a robotic with a face, [people] instantly name it ‘him’ or ‘her’ and are rather more light within the dialog. So I don’t know the place that is all going, and I’m solely going to reply as a roboticist, proper? I imagine that we will construct one thing that folks will use. We’ve all seen dystopian and robotic films about horrible issues taking place. It’s all about how we use this stuff.”
Robotic eyes inside a humanoid face
Realbotix’s facial expertise is one in every of its most proprietary options. The corporate holds three patents round these improvements:
- A modular interchangeable face (US11235255)
- Rrobotic imaginative and prescient eyeballs with an integral digicam (US10940399)
- Adoll head with magnetically adjustable facial contours (US8888553B2)
“I imagine we’ve developed the primary robotic imaginative and prescient system that connects to AI, so it’s greater than observational,” asserted Kiguel. “It may truly have a look at you and browse social cues. Is that this particular person joyful or unhappy? And it connects it to the AI to supply a response.”
“There are different instruments on the market that act like cameras; ours is definitely a mind,” he mentioned. “And the resounding factor I’m listening to is that we’re the one people who have truly been capable of connect a imaginative and prescient system to an AI, like an actual bodily embodiment. The remainder of what everyone else is doing is managed by people.”
“Our robots aren’t excellent at breakdancing or karate chopping into the air, however we’ve thrown our robots into Instances Sq. for six days straight to simply have autonomous conversations and improvise on their very own,” Kiguel boasted. “No person else has completed that.”
He listed different Realbotix benefits: “We’ve patented a face-removal system. As a result of now we have the pores and skin, and if one thing goes improper, you don’t wish to be chopping pores and skin, we will truly take away the face, put a distinct face on, with a distinct wig, press a button, after which you’ve a wholly completely different robotic character on the identical robotic skeleton.”
“Our robots look human, however they’re modular,” noticed Kiguel. “So if one thing goes improper, you possibly can pop off a hand, ship it again, and we are going to ship you a alternative. It’s like Lego. So you possibly can truly take your robotic aside, put it in a suitcase, and journey with it. No person else is even occupied with that.”
Realbotix units costs for Foremost Road
Realbotix’s system begins at $20,000 for a robotic torso. Consider it as a tabletop concierge bot.
The corporate’s robots can price as a lot as $125,000 for its F-Sequence. That is the robotic featured at CES, named Aria, with 4 to eight hours of battery life (or a plug-in choice), 44 levels of freedom, and a number of animations. There may be additionally a $199 month-to-month enterprise monitoring subscription.
This pricing is an instance of how the corporate is working aggressively to separate itself from its better-known grownup e-store and focus solely on business-to-business use instances for customer support, hospitality, retail, healthcare, and leisure.
Kiguel proudly promoted the worth proposition for purchasers: “The rationale that’s a superb ROI is within the case of a concierge. If you happen to had been a 24-hour concierge at a lodge, you’re speaking about three shifts from somebody who’s going to make $75,000 a yr. We might promote you a product that might act as a concierge for $40,000, and it could possibly work 24 hours a day, seven days every week. And so the payback could be very excessive. There aren’t any sick days, no trip days, no unions.”
In 1998, Texas A&M professor Jonathan Coopersmith revealed his well-known treatise on “Pornography, Expertise and Progress.” The premise of his scholarly analysis was as an instance how the grownup leisure market grew to become a catalyst for innovation, from 8mm cameras to VCRs to the Web.
Coopersmith argued that porn shoppers are sometimes the primary pioneers to undertake new applied sciences. As familiarity and experience develop, the larger, extra mainstream market follows, as now we have seen with VHS, DVDs, the World Extensive Net, and streaming. Realbotix is likely to be having its personal Coopersmith second, making humanoid avatars the subsequent invention to make the leap from the red-light district to Foremost Road.
Realbotix’s product line has a variety of lifelike faces. Supply Realbotix.com
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