AI toys, companions and robots were already there everywhere at CES this year, but among the horde of stuffed animals and glowing eyes emojis, two caught my eye. HeyMates and Buddyo are betting that the collectible action figure boom will return with an AI-powered vengeance, allowing us to talk to sports stars and superheroes at our desks.
The basic concept of both models is this: take a cute figurine and attach it to a clever base with a speaker, microphone, and maybe a flashing delicate ring or two. Then employ the included app to power LLM’s basic action figure-based chatbot, so you can talk to Albert Einstein about the theory of relativity or Darth Vader about crushing dissident forces, with some amusing pep talk and a cheesy joke or two.
Plus, the two startups I met this week are different from each other. Olli is the more established of the two. It already supplies the AI-powered BuddyOS to many other toy makers, but now it wants to build its own devices. With that in mind, it’s launching HeyMates, Funko-style figures with RFID chips in their bases that, when placed on the included stand, become interactive AI characters.
Olli intends to launch HeyMates on Kickstarter later this year, starting with three figurines: Einstein, who talks about science and creativity; Zara, a tarot reader who gives advice with a touch of mysticism; and Chandler – a bold choice of name for a toy that “brings the dry, sarcastic charm of a ’90s sitcom character,” given his death in 2023. Friends star Matthew Perry.
The company wants to produce its own toys to assert inventive control and stay ahead of what CEO Hai Ta says is a market that will soon boom, with imitators and rivals likely on the way. He sees a future that includes licensed characters and celebrity likenesses, as well as Ollie’s own line of HeyMates IP. In tiny, he wants to build more Funko Pops, but make them artificially smart.
Yijia Zhang, CEO of Buddyo, sees things differently. It doesn’t want to replace Funko Pops, but to build a platform that could stand alongside them. In fact, it’s not even Funko Pops he’s referring to, but Nintendo’s Amiibo. Zhang describes himself as a Nintendo “superfan,” and Buddyo is his effort to get more out of his own Amiibo collection.
Instead of selling figures, Buddyo is releasing a stand it calls the AI Pod, with a socket exactly like the standard Amiibo base. The pod uses the same NFC technology as Nintendo figures to recognize specific characters, and Buddyo will also sell its own NFC-equipped bases on which Funko Pops, action figures and (of course) Labubus can be placed, with a larger pod planned in the future that will be able to accommodate larger figures.
Since existing figurines do not come with chatbot personalities, Buddyo has developed a character creation app for each figurine. Take a photo and give the character a name, and the app’s artificial intelligence will analyze it, extracting history and personality. He’s able to recognize existing IP, so he knew Stitch was a cartoon alien and Mario was a plumber with a questionable Italian accent who loved saying “It’s me!” And it actually delivers exactly that accent, allowing you to select a voice from a library of different sounds, including sound samples that match copyrighted characters. Zhang is quick to point out that all of these solutions are provided by the community, not the company, which he hopes will keep the infamously litigious Nintendo out of the loop.
Zhang has a background in artificial intelligence – he was once a software engineer at Google, worked on Google Assistant, and now leads the artificial intelligence and platforms team at Plaud. Perhaps this explains its focus on building an AI platform and base, rather than designing novel toys from scratch. But he says it’s also about capitalizing on the fact that people already have a “deep connection” with their collections that novel toys or novel intellectual property would lack.
Once launched, HeyMates and Buddyo feel similar. Both emphasize fun, light-hearted chat with AI avatars – “tell me a joke” remains everyone’s favorite question in the demo – although Zhang says Buddyo’s hybrid ChatGPT/Gemini AI stack can be used as a full AI assistant, just with a little more character. That’s not an option for HeyMates, each of which is designed to do one thing well, with plans for specific figures with whom you can talk about movies, cooking, or K-pop.
It’s still an open question whether there’s a significant market for AI toys and their accompanying chatbots, but the combination of technology and collectibles is the most compelling case I’ve seen so far.
Neither HeyMates nor Buddyo have any involvement from Funko, which has its own problems to solve – just two months ago warned investors that there are “significant doubts” about its ability to continue as a going concern due to slowing sales and high tariffs. Will we see a desperate Funko turn to artificial intelligence for salvation, or will its passivity allow a novel company to take over the space? Either way, it’s clear that the talkative collectibles are coming – and soon.
Photography: Dominic Preston / The Verge