• The state of the market in figures

• Flagship robots

• What to expect next

A robot that walks on two legs and picks up objects with its hands is no longer a concept from an exhibition, but a full-fledged participant in the labor market. Humanoids have moved beyond the stage of laboratory demonstrations and have begun to make their way onto assembly lines, warehouses and private homes. Over the past year, they have come to be shipped by the thousands, valued in the billions and embedded in real production chains: from Tesla and Mercedes-Benz factories to Amazon warehouses.

A humanoid is a robot with a human-like form: two legs, two arms, a torso and a “head” with cameras. Such a design is needed not for a striking look. The world around us is designed for the human body: door handles, steps, tools, shelf heights. A robot in human form can work in this environment without rebuilding it, unlike classic industrial manipulators that require a separate automated line.

Interest in the topic is fueled by several factors at once. Language models and computer vision systems have given robots the “brain” they had lacked for decades. In parallel, actuators, batteries and sensors are getting cheaper. Against this backdrop, big money has flowed into the industry: Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for the humanoid market to $38 billion by 2035, while Morgan Stanley estimates the entire ecosystem market at $5 trillion by 2050.

The Incrypted editorial team examined which companies set the tone in this race and how their flagship models differ.

• There is no single winner yet: Tesla has scale of production, Figure has commercial maturity, Boston Dynamics has engineering experience, and Unitree has a low price.
• The humanoid market is estimated at $2.92 billion in 2025 with a forecast of growth to $15.26 billion by 2030 at an average annual rate of about 39%.
• The most affordable serial humanoid is the Unitree G1 at $16,000. The most anticipated home models are the Figure 03 and 1X Neo at $20,000.
• Chinese manufacturers (Unitree, UBTech, AgiBot) were the first to reach mass deliveries to industry.

The state of the market in figures

In 2026, the humanoid market is moving into the stage of orders and deliveries. Its volume is estimated at $2.92 billion in 2025, and by 2030 it is expected to grow to $15.26 billion ― an average annual rate of about 39%. , Fearing they will miss a promising direction, many companies are developing humanoids ― from automakers to narrowly specialized startups. And the largest of them are attracting multimillion-dollar financing.

Among such giants, first of all, is Figure AI, a Silicon Valley startup that develops universal human-like robots and its own AI-based control system. In the fall of 2025, the company received a valuation of $39 billion and became the most expensive private company in the segment.

Apptronik is a robotics company from Austin that grew out of a University of Texas lab. Its industrial robot Apollo is funded by Google and Mercedes-Benz, while the company itself raised $520 million at a valuation of $5.5 billion.

China's Unitree, which started with four-legged robots and now makes affordable humanoids, has filed for an IPO in Shanghai with a target valuation of about $7 billion.

Automakers, IT corporations and the stock market ― through IPOs ― are investing in humanoids at the same time. The issuer of the stablecoin USDT, Tether, is also seriously interested in the segment. It has already participated in funding rounds of the startups NEURA Robotics and Generative Bionics.

At the same time, the connection between robotics and the crypto industry is not limited to the stablecoin giant's interest in it.

An autonomous robot needs three things: data for training, computing power and a way to pay for services without human involvement. Blockchain technologies solve precisely this third task, allowing settlements to be made directly between machines using crypto wallets.

Previously, we examined in detail the state of the market for decentralized AI solutions and blockchain agents, as well as what advantages blockchain can provide to robotics.

Below are the companies that set the tone in the humanoid race. Perhaps soon they will gain worldwide fame just as rapidly as OpenAI and Anthropic did after the launch of chatbots.

Flagship robots 

Tesla Optimus

Optimus is a Tesla project that Elon Musk calls potentially more valuable than the company's entire automotive business. As of the time this material was prepared, the third generation of the robot, Optimus Gen 3, is in the final stage of development. The start of production is scheduled for the summer of 2026, and mass production in the tens of thousands of units ― for 2027.

The main difference of Gen 3 is the new hands with 22 degrees of freedom and actuators moved into the forearm on a biomimetic principle. The “intelligence” is handled by the Tesla AI5 chip and integration with the Grok language model from xAI. The target price at scale is below $20,000, although the current cost is estimated to be noticeably higher.

Currently the robots perform simple operations at Tesla's own factories, but have not yet entered commercial operation on a mass scale.

Figure 03

The startup Figure AI presented the third generation of its robot, Figure 03, in October 2025. The machine was designed not as a prototype, but as a product for mass production and for the home.

The robot, 173 cm tall, weighs 61 kg, carries a payload of up to 20 kg and runs up to 5 hours on wireless charging. The hands got 20 degrees of freedom, and the sensors on the fingertips detect force from three grams. The body is covered for the first time in soft textile with multilayer foam ― this was done for safety during contact with people in everyday life.

The “brain” of Figure 03 is the proprietary Helix model, which combines vision, reasoning and motion control. The starting price is $20,000, with deliveries expected at the end of 2026. The first production line is designed for 12,000 robots per year, with the goal of reaching 100,000 units in four years. The robot is already being tested at the BMW plant in Spartanburg.

Boston Dynamics Atlas

Boston Dynamics is an industry veteran, known for viral videos with robots. The company abandoned the hydraulic version of Atlas in favor of a fully electric one. The serial version was shown at CES 2026 in January.

Each joint of the new Atlas is driven by an electric motor. This made the robot quieter, faster and more reliable, and also removed the risk of hydraulic fluid leaks. The machine can lift loads weighing about 45 kg and demonstrates gymnastic tricks unavailable to most competitors.

The further fate of Atlas is determined by the parent structure Hyundai Motor Group. The corporation plans to deploy more than 25,000 robots at Hyundai and Kia plants, which will account for about 83% of the target production capacity of 30,000 units per year by 2028. 

1X Neo

The Norwegian-American company 1X bet on the home rather than the factory. In October 2025, it opened pre-orders for Neo ― a humanoid for household tasks.

Neo is covered in soft fabric, has a height of about 168 cm and a weight of 30 kg. At the same time, the robot lifts up to 70 kg and carries up to 25 kg. From day one it can open doors for guests, bring objects and turn off the lights, with new skills added through software updates.

Neo can be bought for $20,000 in a one-time payment or by subscription for $499 per month. The deposit for a pre-order is $200. The first deliveries are planned for 2026 in the US, with entry into other markets from 2027.

Unitree G1

China's Unitree chose a strategy of low price and volume. Its G1 model costs from $16,000 and is considered the most affordable serial humanoid on the market.

The G1, about 130 cm tall, is known primarily for acrobatics: the robot runs, jumps, does flips and regains balance after being pushed. The full-size industrial model H2 is valued by the company at $29,900.

By the end of 2025, Unitree shipped more than 5,500 humanoids and, according to its own data, took about a third of the global market. For 2026, the company sets a goal of 20,000 delivered units. Among the investors are Alibaba, Tencent and Ant Group. Unitree is the only manufacturer that simultaneously supplies consumer, research and industrial models in large volumes.

UBTech Walker S2

UBTech focuses on industrial use. In November 2025, the company began mass production and deliveries of the Walker S2 ― a full-size humanoid for factories.

A key feature of the Walker S2 is autonomous battery replacement in three minutes using two hands. This allows the robot to work a shift with almost no downtime. The machine is controlled by the proprietary agent system Co-Agent.

Orders for the Walker series exceeded 800 million yuan (about $112 million). Among the customers are BYD, Geely, Foxconn and SF Express. UBTech plans to reach a capacity of 5,000 industrial robots per year in 2026 and 10,000 ― in 2027.

Agility Digit

Digit from Agility Robotics looks less anthropomorphic because of its “reverse” knees like a bird's. Agility bets not on universality, but on a narrow yet commercially viable task ― logistics.

Digit moves containers at GXO and Amazon warehouses. By April 2026, the robot had moved more than 100,000 containers at GXO sites.

What to expect next 

2026 looks like a transition point from single pilots to the first serial batches. Tesla promises to launch production of the Optimus Gen 3 in the summer, Figure and 1X ― to begin deliveries of home models by the end of the year, while China's Unitree and UBTech are already ramping up output by the thousands of units.

Which of the players will establish itself as the leader depends on three factors: price, reliability in real operation and the maturity of the controlling AI.

Source: Incrypted