Unitree Founder Says Humanoid Robots Deployed in Car Factories, Home Use Still Limited

On August 20, at the 2026 World Robot Conference, Wang Xingxing, founder and chairman of Unitree Robotics, delivered a keynote speech titled "From Exhibits to Products: The Next Decade of the Humanoid Robot Industry." During the speech, he said the company continues to push robots into real-life scenarios, including deployment in car factories and the use of robots for simple testing at its own facilities. Meanwhile, the AI team is also advancing efforts to bring robots into households to perform domestic chores. Wang stated that because current overall efficiency and generalization capabilities have not yet reached sufficient levels, Unitree has not pursued large-scale promotion of these applications.

On the development trajectory of embodied intelligence, Wang proposed that the "ChatGPT moment" for the field could ideally arrive within 2 to 3 years, or take as long as 5 to 10 years. He set the benchmark as robots being able to successfully complete approximately 80% of tasks in 80% of unfamiliar scenarios when given voice or text commands. At present, the most critical challenge lies in the alignment between the input and output of AI large models and real-world robots.