--- title: "When You Read the Fine Print, Humanoid Robots Are Going Absolutely Nowhere" description: "Humanoid robot startups have bragged they'll ship or test thousands of robots by the year's end. So where are they?" date: "2025-09-15" modified: "2025-09-15" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/humanoid-robots-going-nowhere" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" tags: - "Humanoid Robots" - "optimus" - "tesla" --- # When You Read the Fine Print, Humanoid Robots Are Going Absolutely Nowhere ![Humanoid robot startups have bragged they'll ship or test thousands of robots by the year's end. So where are they?]() *\Image: Xie Han / Xinhua via Getty / Futurism\* We tend to get fixated on realizing certain contraptions from science fiction, no matter how impractical. [Flying cars](). [Jet packs](). And now, humanoid robots. It's only the latter, however, that's anticipated to one day be a [multitrillion dollar market](), with big firms like Tesla leading the charge. In March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk [boasted]() that his automaker would build 5,000 Optimus robots by the end of this year. Responding to Musk's claim, [so did the Shanghai-based startup Agibot](). Norwegian robot maker 1X announced it would be [testing its robot in thousands of homes]() before 2026, too. And the AI robotics firm Figure [plans to ship]() 100,000 humanoid robots in the next four years. Yet few of these promised robots have actually been built. And there're still huge existential questions looming over the industry, as outlined in a new [writeup by ]()[*IEEE Spectrum*]() — and it's not clear if some of these obstacles will be overcome in the near future. Exemplifying the pie-in-the-sky thinking that's dominating the space is that many are betting on advances in AI — another tech awash in outrageous promises and clouded by a murky future — magically resulting in all-purpose robots, according to Melonee Wise, former chief product officer at Agility Robotics. "I think what a lot of people are hoping for is they're going to AI their way out of this," Wise told *IEEE*. "But the reality of the situation is that currently AI is not robust enough to meet the requirements of the market." That's painfully apparent. In a [video demo shared last week](), Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, accompanied by Musk, asks a Tesla Optimus bot for a Coke. But the bot takes an awkward number of seconds before responding, cuts out mid-sentence, and then stands unresponsively while Benioff repeatedly tells the robot to get going. When it does, it moves agonizingly slowly, loudly clunking along like an oversized RC toy. Reminder: there's supposed to be 5,000 of these ready to be shipped by the end of the year, with scant months to go. (Perhaps this is why Tesla has mostly relied on [humans teleoperating its automatons]() whenever it's tried to show them off.) Another surprisingly pedestrian technological hurdle is battery life. Agility's "Digit" robot, for example, can run for 90 minutes tops while taking 9 minutes to fully recharge. But only 30 minutes of that time is usable under normal circumstances, since the extra hour of charge is held in reserve for when work needs to be put on pause, which happens a lot on the factory floor — otherwise it might run out of battery mid-task, according to *IEEE*. Now imagine a factory floor with hundreds of these robots with heavy battery packs that need to be topped off every half-hour. "No one wants to deal with that," Wise said. But maybe we're putting the cart before of the horse here. Will factories even think swapping out their reliable and highly specialized machines — or human workers — with experimental automatons is worth the investment? "The bigger problem is demand," Wise told *IEEE*. "I don't think anyone has found an application for humanoids that would require several thousand robots per facility," she added. Amazon is one of the biggest example of an industrial powerhouse embracing robot automation, with [robots on track to outnumber humans at its vast warehouses]() — but its most successful ones are highly specialized units like robotic arms designed for loading and unloading boxes. Though the e-commerce giant is [experimenting with humanoid machines](), like [Agility's "Digit" bot](), it's nowhere near to deploying them at a large scale. Even if manufacturers are willing to gamble, industrial applications for humanoid robots would have trouble getting off the ground, according to Wise, because they would fall under the already heavily regulated field of industrial machinery. That means the industry wouldn't enjoy the same leeway that emerging tech like autonomous cars enjoyed, for example. All told, while the field of humanoid robotics is generating loads of hype — and even glimpses here and there of sci-fi potential — it hasn't shown that it's anywhere near ready to becoming the juggernaut its investors are banking on. **More on robots:** *[Wild Video Shows Humanoid Robot Effortlessly Folding Laundry]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()