CES 2025 was a mixed bag for humanoid robots. The form factor had a defining moment, as images of the top players were framed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote on Monday.
Of these, Agility’s Digit was also on display along with a miniature conveyor belt at a closed-access Nvidia booth. It was a nice return for the bipedal robot, an earlier form of which appeared at CES 2020 as part of Ford’s showcase.
Beyond that, humanoid representation has largely been limited to smaller companies, with the exception of Apptronik. The Austin company’s Apollo robot made an appearance as part of Texas Instruments’ presence at the show. The humanoid internally uses some of the Dallas-based semiconductor giant’s units.
After a few near misses, this was my first time seeing 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 is something strange about the robot. It’s frankly refreshing, as much of the competition has offered similar aesthetic visions of humanoids: dark, sterile, even apocalyptic.
Apollo is bright and almost cartoonish, with a pair of big eyes and a head shape that brings back warm memories of the first iMacs. Like other first-generation humanoids, Apollo will be heavily focused on factory work, but just because it’s meant for an industrial environment doesn’t mean it has to be inhospitable and cold.
Apollo’s movements were smooth and the robot even held it tight for the camera as I snapped a few 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 that would 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.
