Usually, I start off these annual highlights posts by saying that it was the best year ever for robotics. But this year, I’m not so sure. At the end of 2024, it really seemed like AI and humanoid robots were poised to make a transformative amount of progress towards some sort of practicality. While it’s certainly true that progress has been made, it’s hard to rationalize what’s actually happened in 2025 with the amount of money and hype that has suffused robotics over the course of the year. And for better or worse, humanoids are overshadowing everything else, raising questions about what will happen if the companies building them ultimate…
Usually, I start off these annual highlights posts by saying that it was the best year ever for robotics. But this year, I’m not so sure. At the end of 2024, it really seemed like AI and humanoid robots were poised to make a transformative amount of progress towards some sort of practicality. While it’s certainly true that progress has been made, it’s hard to rationalize what’s actually happened in 2025 with the amount of money and hype that has suffused robotics over the course of the year. And for better or worse, humanoids are overshadowing everything else, raising questions about what will happen if the companies building them ultimately do not succeed.
We’ll be going into 2026 with both optimism and skepticism, and we’ll keep doing what we always do: talking to the experts, asking as many hard questions as we can, and making sure to share **all **the cool robots, even (or especially) the ones that you won’t see anywhere else.
So thanks for reading, and to all you awesome robotics folks out there, thanks for sharing your work with us! IEEE Spectrum has a bunch of exciting new stuff planned for 2026, and as we close out 2025, here’s a quick look back at some of our best robotics stories of the year.
1. Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype
Eddie Guy
Humanoid robots are hard, and they’re hard in lots of different ways. For some of those ways, we at least understand the problems and what the solutions will likely involve. But there are other problems that have no clear solutions, and most humanoid companies, especially the well-funded ones, seem quite happy to wave those problems away while continuing to raise extraordinary amounts of money. We’re going to keep calling this out whenever we see it, and expect even more skepticism in 2026.
2. Exploit Allows for Takeover of Fleets of Unitree Robots
CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
Security is one of those pesky little things that is super important in robotics but that early-stage robotics companies typically treat as an afterthought because it doesn’t drive investment. Chinese manufacturer Unitree is really the one company with humanoids robots that are available enough and affordable enough for clever people to perform a security audit on them. And to the surprise of no one, Unitree’s robots had serious vulnerabilities, which as of yet have not all been fixed.
3.Amazon’s Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
The thing I appreciate about the folks at Amazon Robotics is how relentless they are in finding creative solutions for problems at scale. Amazon simply doesn’t have time to mess around, and they’re designing robots to do what robots do best: specific repetitive tasks in structured environments. In the current climate of robotics hype, it’s refreshing, honestly.
4. Large Behavior Models Are Helping Atlas Get to Work
Did I mention that humanoids robots are hard? Whether or not anyone can deliver on the promises being made about them (and personally, I’m leaning more and more strongly towards not), progress is being made towards humanoids that are much more capable and versatile than they ever have been. The collaboration between Toyota Research and Boston Dynamics on large behavior models is just one example of how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go.
5. iRobot’s Cofounder Weighs In on Company’s Bankruptcy
Lindsey Nicholson/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
My least favorite story to write happened right at the end of the year—iRobot filed for bankruptcy. This was not a total surprise; regulators shutting down an acquisition by Amazon in 2024 essentially gutted the company, and it’s been limping along towards the inevitable since then. Right after the news was announced, we spoke with iRobot co-founder and ex-CEO Colin Angle, who had plenty to share about where things went wrong, and what we can learn from it.
6. How Dairy Robots Are Changing Work for Cows (and Farmers)
Evan Ackerman
My favorite story of 2025 was as much about cows as it was about robots. I was astonished to learn just how many fully autonomous robots are hard at work on dairy farms around the world, and utterly delighted to also learn that these robots are actively improving the lives of both dairy farmers and the dairy cows themselves. Dairy farming is endless hard work, but thanks to these robots, small family farms are able to keep themselves sustainable (and sane). Everybody wins, thanks to the robots.