2025: The Year of the Humanoid

Anyone following the humanoid robotics space will remember 2025 as a turning point. For years, the conversation in the field was dominated by research papers, promises, staged videos and teleoperated robots serving drinks. This year, things changed, and the industry started to take real, tangible form.

Demos became more rooted in real life and more convincing. Companies opened pre-orders, launched pilot programs, and made significant progress in testing humanoids in real environments. New platforms appeared almost every week. Investment capital poured into the sector at an unseen pace.

As expectations are growing and stakes rising, we decided to take a step back and look at the year behind. Below is our summary of the key moments that defined humanoid robotics in 2025: major investments, product announcements, pilot deployments, regulatory advancements and much more.

The Market Expanded, With the U.S. and EU Leading 

The numbers tell a similar story: in 2025, the humanoid robotics market continued to grow.

In terms of regions, the largest markets in 2025 are the United States and the European Union, each approaching $750 million. China follows with approximately $242 million, while MENA ($145 million) and Japan ($126 million) are closing the top-5. So, despite many news headlines positioning China as the leader in humanoid robotics, the data shows a different picture — for now. The race is still far from over.

Looking forward, most analysts expect humanoid robotics to grow at incredibly high rates over the next 5-10 years. More optimistic forecasts predict a CAGR of 35-50%, with breakthroughs in AI, falling production costs, and rising demand across sectors that fuel rapid expansion. More conservative reports expect around 7-20% annual growth, as well as some regulatory and technical challenges.

At the same time, the humanoid robotics industry is still at a very early stage of development. People never coexisted with humanoids before, so uncertainty is still very high. We could assume that the growth trajectory will depend on progress in mobility, manipulation, autonomy, and safety. Other important factors will include cost reduction, regulatory approvals, and real-world adoption cases.

Funding and Investment Speeds up the Race

By the end of 2025, global investment in humanoid robotics is expected to exceed $4 billion, which is a very clear signal that the industry has moved into the mainstream of tech and industrial investment.

Several major funding rounds defined the year, according to Crunchbase data. First of all, UBTech Robotics led the way with a $1.3 billion, backed by major players including Qiming Venture Partners, CDH Investments, Tencent, Titanium Ventures, and CITIC Securities. Then, founded in 2022, Figure followed with a $1 billion Series C round, attracting strategic investors such as OpenAI, NVIDIA, Karman Ventures, Brookfield Asset Management, and Bezos Expeditions. Apptronik closed top-3 with a $735 million investment, with participation from B Capital, ARK Investment Management, Korea Investment Partners, Bossa Invest, and Scrum Ventures.

Among other top-5 rounds of the year, Physical Intelligence secured $600 million to advance robot foundation models, and Leju Robotics — more than $200 million.

Investment in humanoid robotics in 2025 was truly global, from the U.S., to China and Europe. We can expect that this competition will most probably speed up innovation, lower the costs, and lead to earlier commercialization, which will be beneficial for the whole market.

At the same time, not every startup will succeed. Some will pivot, a few will fail. We predict that winners will be those who in the long run will be able to show customer value through real cases of automation and integration into existing workflows. The market wants robots that can do real work, not those that are better at dancing in videos.

Major Launches and Announcements

If 2025 could have been described with one word, then it would have been “buzz”, which stood for viral announcements, bold demos, and high-impact partnerships

Figure had one of its major moments of the year with the launch of Figure 03. “Figure 03 is designed for Helix, the home, and the world at scale”, they mentioned in the announcement. Time recently named it one of the Best Inventions of 2025.

Another highlight was the launch of NEO Gamma by 1X, a company famous for its strategy of focusing on home-use robots, unlike most other players. NEO now comes in a consumer-friendly domestic design, walks with a natural human gait and arm swings, and has enhanced general-purpose manipulation. In October, a Norwegian-American company broke the internet with a pre-order announcement that quickly went viral worldwide.

In China, Unitree introduced H2. The company, which is often referred to by the media as China’s answer to Boston Dynamics, showed a viral clip of their latest humanoid robot with incredible dancing and kickboxing skills.

At Humanoid, we announced the launch of two platforms: alpha-versions of our HMND 01 wheeled and bipedal robots. Our wheeled humanoid, designed for Industrial use, was built in just 7 months, which is the fastest humanoid development cycle in history. As for the bipedal robot, the speed was even faster. Built in just 5 months, compared with the industry average of 18 to 24 months, it achieved stable walking only 48 hours after final assembly, which usually takes weeks or even months.

All of these advances in the field wouldn’t be possible without a strong foundation, and in this space, no company rivals NVIDIA. In 2025, NVIDIA made several bold announcements that shook the humanoid robotics industry. The company grabbed headlines with GR00T N1, the world’s first open humanoid robot foundation model, and Jetson Thor, described as “the ultimate platform for physical AI.”

Humanoid became one of the leading European companies to integrate NVIDIA Jetson Thor into our HMND 01 alpha prototype. This high-performance “robotic brain” helps our robots run multi-AI workflows and large-scale generative AI models, bringing them closer to real-world intelligence and autonomy.

Partnerships: Humanoids Got Real Jobs

2025 was also very much a year of partnerships, especially between robotics companies and real-world operators. To move beyond demos, humanoids need real environments, and collaboration is the fastest way to get there.

For example, Apptronik partnered with Jabil, a global leader in engineering and manufacturing. Together, they launched a pilot program to integrate Apollo humanoid robots into Jabil’s manufacturing operations. The scope includes inspection, sorting, kitting, line-side delivery, fixture placement, and sub-assembly. On the automotive side, Mercedes-Benz deepened its relationship with Apptronik by acquiring a stake in the company. The investment came one year after Mercedes-Benz began using Apollo humanoids in its automobile production processes.

Figure continued its collaboration with BMW, sharing detailed results from an 11-month deployment of the Figure 02 robot at BMW’s Spartanburg plant. The robots ran 10-hour shifts, logged more than 1,250 hours of runtime, handled 90,000+ parts, contributed to the production of 30,000+ vehicles, and executed an estimated 1.2 million robot steps, which equals to more than 200 miles.

At Humanoid, we have been commercially oriented from day one. And for us, 2025 was also pivotal: we began testing robots in real-world environments. One of our first POCs was a near-production trial with our pre-alpha HMND 01 robot at Schaeffler’s plant in Germany.

Finally, partnerships expanded beyond companies to the government level. South Korea launched the K-Humanoid Alliance, bringing together institutions, universities, and industrial and robotics companies. Their goal is ambitious: to develop a national humanoid platform, standardize interfaces, build a shared AI “robot brain”, and create globally competitive humanoids by 2030.

Europe Raises the Bar in Regulation

As humanoid robots move to real-world deployment, regulation becomes a defining success factor. Commercial humanoid projects must now be built with compliance, transparency, safety, and accountability in mind from day one. 

Europe, traditionally a region with higher regulatory standards, is leading this path. In 2025, the European Union issued the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). Obligations include data governance and traceability, human oversight, robustness and cybersecurity, transparency, among others. For robotics companies operating in Europe, it means increased compliance costs, but at the same time it brings the potential to strengthen enterprise and consumer trust.

In addition, the EU also published its Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation, which includes a dedicated section on robotics and autonomous systems. For robot manufacturers and system integrators, meeting these standards will likely become a requirement, or at least a significant competitive advantage, for deploying robots in Europe.

Across the Atlantic, the regulatory tone is very different. In 2025, the United States issued U.S. Executive Order 14179, titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI.” Its main goal is to reduce regulatory burdens and accelerate AI and robotics development. For humanoid robotics, it means faster experimentation, quicker product releases, and earlier industrial deployments. All these are essential requirements to compete in the humanoid race.

The broader trend is that the regulatory environment for robots is maturing. This raises the bar for design, testing, documentation, compliance across the industry, but also helps create a more stable market.

At the same time, companies face higher risk if they fail to meet emerging AI and robotics requirements, which makes long-term planning more conservative. Because regulation is still incomplete and fragmented on the global scale, firms that operate internationally will need to navigate a patchwork of national and regional rules, which may slow global scaling.

Which Sectors are Ready for Humanoids?

In 2025, logistics, warehousing, and manufacturing are among the leading application areas, where most of the humanoid robotics players are experimenting at the moment. The reasons behind this trend are aging populations and labor shortages. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, 1 in 6 people globally will be aged 60 or over. It also projects a shortfall of 11 million healthcare workers by the same year.

The push for 24/7 operations, and the need for robots that can navigate human-centric spaces are all driving tests and pilots. Last year, a National Association of Manufacturers reported that more than 71% of manufacturers in the U.S. had difficulty attracting and retaining employees. Humanoid robots could be an answer.

In retail, hospitality, customer service, and public-sector settings, companies mainly test humanoid robots for front-facing roles like reception, assistance, and concierge services. In such environments, perceived “sociability” or “presence” really matter and their appearance and communication capabilities make them well suited for these tasks. However, at the moment, most deployments are still at the pilot stage.

Other growth areas for humanoids include education and research, security and disaster response, and long-term home assistance. In these segments scalability will depend a lot on robots’ reliability, safety, and cost.

Key 2025 Trends

1. The AI Brain: Humanoids as “Embodied AI” Agents

Humanoids are evolving from being meticulously programmed and controlled machines to “embodied AI” agents that learn and adapt. They are not just trained for single, scripted tasks, instead modern robots learn from massive datasets of video and simulation data. This way, they learn skills that could be generalized (for example, “pick up an object” or “open the door”) and transfer to the real world.

Companies like Boston Dynamics, 1X, Figure, and Humanoid train their AI policies in ultra-realistic virtual simulations using platforms such as NVIDIA Isaac Sim before deploying them to physical robots. With this approach, they can significantly speed up development and avoid potential hardware damage.

2. The Body: From Engineering Marvels to Practical Tools 

General focus in the field is shifting from creating astonishing but fragile biomechanical marvels towards building practical, reliable, and cost-effective platforms. Hydraulic systems (for example, the previous version of Atlas) are giving way to high-torque electric joints. They are quieter, cleaner, more energy-efficient, and easier to maintain, as seen in platforms like Figure 031, Tesla Optimus, or Apptronik Apollo.

Companies are also designing robots with swappable components, including arms, hands, end-effectors, and even battery packs, to tailor them for specific tasks. This is modularity in action, and the emphasis is on safety, longer battery life, and real-world usability. Cost is a defining factor in the commercial viability of humanoid robots, and it must be addressed at the design stage. This means designing systems around real, well-defined tasks instead of overengineering for potential future use cases.

Today, humanoid robots are still very expensive. Because of immature supply chains and complicated subsystems, unit costs are typically in the range of $150,000-500,000. However, cost reduction is achievable. Between 2022 and 2024, it already dropped by at least 40%, and we can expect further reductions as production scales.

3. More Players Choose Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) Business Model 

Business models are evolving together with technology. Instead of selling humanoid robots as multi-hundred-thousand-dollar equipment, many companies are moving toward the Robotics-as-a-Service business model. It means that they lease the robots and charge by the hour or per task. This approach significantly lowers the barrier to enter and makes humanoids more affordable and accessible to a much wider range of customers. 

Looking forward, as we move into 2026, we can expect more commercial deployments as companies begin to treat humanoid robots not as experiments, but as operational tools. And one day, almost without noticing how it happened, having a humanoid colleague or a humanoid assistant at home may feel as natural as having a smartphone in your pocket.