The latest humanoid The landscape robot, Sprout, is not designed to carry boxes or stack shelves. Instead, this attractive and relatively cheap model, which is about the size of a 9-year-old child, is intended to help customers in hotels, shops, and restaurants.

“We said, ‘What if we could make something light, attractive, and safe to be with, and capable enough to do some really exciting things?'” said Robert Cochran, cofounder and CEO of Fauna, the startup behind Sprout.

The Sprout is available for purchase starting today from $50,000. Cochran added that his company is already talking to hotels about using Sprout as a butler that brings toothbrushes and other items to guests in need.

Sprout’s launch is part of a growing industry in the United States. The business of humanoids is growing despite the fact that it is not yet clear how practical and useful these systems will be. More than a dozen US companies are working on humanoids, including Boston Dynamics, which recently signed a deal to use Google’s AI in its robots; Tesla, which developed a system called Optimus; and startups like Agility Robotics, Figure AI, and 1X.

Unitree, a Chinese robot maker, has one too found success selling inexpensive humanoids for entertainment and research purposes. Some of Unitree’s humanoids cost less than $20,000. When fully equipped with sensors and computers, however, it costs about the same as the Sprout.

Fauna’s first customers include Disney, which already uses robots in some of its theme parks, and Boston Dynamics, which makes a range of legged robots for industrial use, including larger, more powerful humanoids.

Cochran says Sprout is designed to be easy to program, which is especially useful in research settings. The robot has software libraries that allow it to scan its environment, walk autonomously, access language models, and more. The robot can also be teleoperated out of the box, which is helpful for robot training purposes. Scientists at New York University are using Sprout to research new techniques for robotic manipulation and human-to-robot interaction. The company also says it has developed proprietary technology to help Sprout regain its balance when it stumbles.

While most of the humanoid robots are identified as factory workers, with some already being tested by automakers, Cochran said Fauna believes the first market for the robots could be in the entertainment and service industries.

Cochran showed me a couple of interfaces for Sprout, including an app that shows the robot’s vision and a coding interface that can be used to program the system in real time. Unlike most humanoids, Sprout was designed with human interaction in mind, so it has mechanical eyebrows to express interest, surprise, or confusion.

Cochran previously worked at Meta. Some members of the founding team are from Google. Cochran noted that AI systems that recognize objects, such as those developed for smart glasses, could also be used for robots tasked with interacting with human environments.

At one point during the demo, Cochrane asks Sprout to go and check what’s in the fridge. The robot interpreted the command with an LLM and walked to a corner of the office in a manner not unlike a 9-year-old child. After looking through the glass door of the appliance, Sprout returns to report the existence of several sodas.

Cochrane believes this type of capability would help humanoids break through. “You get a ‘Hello World’ example of a robot where you can talk to an autonomous map and effectively navigate around it,” he said. “And from there, the world is your oyster.”