Need a hand? Humanoid robots are coming into the home.

I had a call scheduled this evening with a founder with a background building robotic hands - sadly we had to reschedule, but that gave me 20 mins back on my Friday night so I wanted to write down some thoughts I’ve been having on trends in robotics and why I am excited about hands.

For decades, humanoid robots have been sort of unimpressive outside of sci-fi.

They’ve mostly shuffled around research labs, performed rehearsed parkour routines, and been wheeled out for flashy demos before disappearing back into obscurity. But this year it feels like something’s changed.

A new wave of humanoids - powered by AI, rapid hardware advancements, and a growing commercial appetite for labor replacement across industries - is making its way out of the factory and into real-world environments, including our homes.

Thinking at the macro level, there’s three trends I’ve been chewing over: LLMs for verbal commands, dexterity and a shift towards ‘compliant’ designs that emulate the human form (not just for functional access to human-oriented spaces, but also for softening our interaction with the robots).

Large language models (LLMs) are replacing rigid programming with something more dynamic, allowing robots to understand verbal commands, learn from interactions, and adapt on the fly more like we would. 1X, for instance, is training its foundation model using real-world home interactions—just as OpenAI’s ChatGPT was trained on the internet’s collective ramblings. The idea is simple: the more robots experience, the smarter they become. At some point, they might even understand the difference between "Put the kettle on" and "Make me a cup of tea" - which, in Britain, is a matter of national importance.

Five years ago, the sight of a bipedal robot walking without immediately face-planting was cause for celebration. Today? They’re walking, lifting, running, and even assembling flat-pack furniture (probably better than most humans). Agility Robotics’ Digit is already shifting boxes in warehouses, Figure AI is betting on logistics, and 1X is developing Neo as a home assistant, designed to do everything from tidying up to assisting the elderly. The last one is what got me first thinking about Robotic Sapiens - making sure my parents are taken care of (as mad as that sounds).

This isn’t just about technological progress; it’s about economics. 1X claims it can manufacture Neo for the price of a car—not a Bugatti, mind you, but something more in the Ford Focus category. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Optimus is being designed for mass production. If this trend continues, humanoids might soon become affordable enough to handle the tasks we’d rather not do—like laundry, washing up, or assembling Ikea bookshelves without an existential crisis.

For decades, humanoid robots have been too expensive, too unsafe, or simply too clumsy to exist outside of controlled industrial settings.

But that really does seem to be changing.

The shift to biologically inspired, compliant designs - where robots move more like humans and interact safely with the world - means they are finally viable for unpredictable environments like homes, hospitals, and even (God help us) restaurants. Instead of rigid, high-energy industrial actuators, these robots use low-powered, tendon-driven mechanisms that mimic human muscle movement. Machines that don’t just move like humans but can safely interact with us without inadvertently breaking bones or crockery.

While robots are finally getting the hang of walking, their hands are still a bit... well, rubbish. Gripping objects reliably remains one of the biggest challenges in robotics—which is why many humanoids today have rudimentary pincers rather than anything remotely hand-like.

But that’s changing too:

• There’s an increasing focus on adaptive, human-like gripping with soft actuators.

• Companies are incorporating tactile feedback with AI-powered haptic sensors for fine motor control and object recognition.

• Robotic hands are becoming more configurable to support different use cases.

• Improvements in low-power actuation and lightweight materials are making robotic hands more viable.

Companies like Shadow Robot, OpenAI-backed Figure AI, and 1X are leading the charge in dexterous robotic hands. The focus is on soft robotics, tendon-driven actuators, and advanced haptics, which could eventually allow robots to button shirts, pour tea, or delicately retrieve a biscuit from a tin without crushing it into dust.

The future? A world where humanoid robots reliably handle household tasks without supervision.

We’re still a few years away from a machine that can cook a proper Sunday roast, but make no mistake—this revolution is coming sooner than most people expect.

And when it does, we might finally have an answer to the age-old question: who does the dishes?