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CES 2025 has been a mixed bag for humanoid robots. The form factor had a watershed moment, as images of the top players flanked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during his Monday keynote.
Of these, Agility’s Digit also showed up alongside a miniature conveyer belt at a closed access NVIDIA booth. It was a nice return for the bipedal robot, an older form of which appeared at CES 2020 as part of Ford’s showcase.
Beyond this, humanoid representation has largely been limited to smaller companies, with the exception of Apptronik. The Austin firm’s Apollo robot made an appearance as part of Texas Instruments’ presence at the show. The humanoid utilizes some of the Dallas-based semi-conductor giant’s modules internally.
After a few near misses, this was the first time I’ve seen Apollo in-person. When Apptronik showed TechCrunch the first footage of the robot in 2023, I had to double check that it wasn’t an animated render. There’s something other worldly about the robot. It’s honestly refreshing, as so much of the competition has offered similar aesthetic visions for humanoids: dark, sterile, even apocalyptic.
Apollo is bright and almost cartoony, with a pair of big eyes and a head shape that brings back warm memories of early iMacs. Like other first-gen humanoids, Apollo will largely focus on factory work, but just because it’s destined for an industrial setting doesn’t mean it has to be unwelcoming and cold.
Image Credits:Brian Heater
Apollo’s movements were smooth, and the robot even hammed it up for the camera as I snapped some photos. It should be noted, however, that this was an extremely limited pick-and-place demo that exists for demonstration purposes only. This was not the intelligent, autonomous version of the robot set to be deployed in factories.
Notably, Apptronik began factory pilots with Mercedes in March, following the announcement of similar deals between Figure and BMW and Agility and Amazon.
Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Juniper.
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