The newest humanoid The on-stage robot, Sprout, is not designed to move boxes or stack shelves. Instead, this cute and relatively affordable model, about the size of a 9-year-old child, is intended to support customers in hotels, stores and restaurants.
“We said, ‘What if we could build something that was light, engaging, and safe to be in, and capable of doing exciting things?’” says Robert Cochran, co-founder and CEO of Fauna, the startup behind Sprout.
Sprout can be purchased for as little as $50,000. Cochran adds that his company is already talking to hotels about using Sprout as a butler to deliver toothbrushes and other items to needy guests.
Launch Sprout is part of a growing industry in the United States. The humanoid business is booming, even though it’s still unclear how practical and useful these systems will be. More than a dozen American companies are working on humanoids, including Boston Dynamics, which recently signed a contract to apply Google artificial intelligence in its robots; Tesla, which is developing a system called Optimus; and start-ups such as Agility Robotics, Figure AI and 1X.
Unitree, a Chinese robot manufacturer, has also found success selling low-cost humanoids for entertainment and research purposes. Some Unitree humanoids cost less than $20,000. However, fully equipped with sensors and computers, they cost about the same as Sprout.
Fauna’s early customers include Disney, which already uses robots in some of its theme parks, and Boston Dynamics, which produces a range of legged robots for industrial applications, including larger and stronger humanoids.
Courtesy of Fauna
Courtesy of Fauna
Cochran says Sprout is designed to be uncomplicated to program, making it especially useful in research environments. The robot is equipped with software libraries that allow it to scan its environment, walk autonomously, access language models, and more. The robot can also be controlled remotely, which can be helpful in robot training. Researchers at Modern York University are using Sprout to research recent techniques for robotic manipulation and human-robot interaction. The company also says it has developed proprietary technology that helps Sprout regain its balance if it trips.
While most humanoid robots are touted as factory workers, and some are already being tested by automakers, Cochran says Fauna believes the first market for the robots could be the entertainment and service industries.
Cochran showed me several Sprout interfaces, including an app that shows a visual perspective of the robot 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, and is therefore equipped with mechanical eyebrows that express interest, surprise, or confusion.
Cochran previously worked at Meta. The remaining members of the founding team are from Google. Cochran notes that artificial intelligence systems that can identify objects, such as those being developed for clever glasses, will also be useful in robots tasked with interacting with the human environment.
At one point during the presentation, Cochrane asked Sprout to go and check what was in the refrigerator. The robot interpreted the command using LLM and walked to the corner of the office in a manner similar to an aggressive 9-year-old. After looking through the glass door of the machine, Sprout returned and reported the presence of several sodas.
Cochrane believes these types of abilities could support humanoids break through. “You can get an example of a ‘Hello World’-style robot that you can talk to, map on your own, and effectively navigate its environment,” he says. “And from then on, the world will be your oyster.”