Boston Dynamics latest Atlas humanoid robot is big, strong, and increasingly smart, thanks to Google. The company has plans to ship up to 30,000 per year.

For several decades, Boston Dynamics has pioneered the development of advanced robots, including humanoids and four-legged systems tested by the military as a way to carry supplies over rough terrain. The company was sold to Google in 2013 and bought by SoftBank in 2017. In 2021, Hyundai acquired a controlling stake.

Chinese company Agibot showed up with two: the human-sized A2 and the slightly smaller X2, both of which were displaying their surprisingly impressive dancing abilities.

Agibot just released a robot dog, a factory-worker humanoid robot on wheels, a "white-collar" humanoid robot for reception-like duties, and a playful dancing robot.

Two-legged robots have a tendency to fall over and "need human intervention to get back up," like tortoises fallen on their backs. Because they're heavy and unstable, they are "currently unsafe for humans to be close to when they are walking."

If you listen to the CES hype machine this year, you might think that robots are finally ready to take over your domestic duties. To some extent that’s true, but take note of the plural: there’s no single robot ready to take over all of your household chores yet, but an army of them just might.

Hyundai Motor Group plans to deploy humanoid robots at its U.S. manufacturing plant in Georgia starting in 2028, marking a step toward automating higher-risk and repetitive manufacturing tasks, the South Korean company said.