The doors to CES 2026 in Las Vegas had not even opened yet when the crowd outside was already buzzing. A morning greeting drifted through the air, someone calling out ‘Good morning from Vegas‘ as the line pressed forward, and within minutes the floor swallowed everyone whole into one of the most densely packed showcases of robotics and artificial intelligence the year had to offer. For anyone trying to understand where machines are heading, this was the closest thing to a field report from the future. The Laughing Lion is back at CES! The King of Las Vegas YouTube 🙂
The shoulder companion that bites a little
One of the earliest stops was a booth showing off a baby T-Rex companion robot, designed to perch on a person’s shoulder the way a parrot might. It was soft to the touch, described by one visitor as feeling ‘like a baby,’ and its silicone skin had a texture closer to a snake than the hard plastic most people expect from a robot. The creature was in its first-generation form, with no conversational AI built in yet. A representative confirmed that the second generation would include an AI model capable of exchanging information and answering questions. Whether it would still bite in that iteration remained unclear. Nearby, a Triceratops version sat curled inside a large egg prop, eyes closed, waiting for a hand wave to stir it awake.
A few aisles over, a small bipedal robot named Jimmy moved with a waddling gait that drew immediate comparisons to a penguin. Onlookers called to it by name, crouching down to get close, and at least one person admitted out loud to wanting to hug it. Jimmy kept moving.
Robots dealing cards and dispensing dessert
The floor covered a lot of ground in a single day. An artisan ice cream machine called the Toro One dispensed custom servings and accepted cookies as mix-in ingredients, prompting one observer to note that having a robot handle a task that messy was long overdue. A bathroom-cleaning robot drew a similar reaction: ‘Finally, a robot doing something that I hate doing.’
Perhaps the most technically intricate demonstration came from a blackjack-dealing robot that read cards using its own visual sensors, called out hand values aloud, and prompted players to hit or stay through a microphone interface. The dealing was deliberate rather than fast. A representative, asked when the pace would improve, said simply: ‘Come back in 2030 and it’ll be much faster.’
A humanoid robot named Nura, asked who would win in a fight against the Terminator, declined the premise entirely. ‘I’d probably offer the Terminator a cup of coffee instead,’ it replied. ‘I’m more about collaboration than combat.’ It then challenged a visitor to tic-tac-toe, narrated its own moves in real time, and won.
The coffee that finished the day
A biped robot called the Tron One, described as a multimodal unit, closed out the day at a coffee station. Using what was identified as the Algro Hand V5 arm attachment, it prepared a latte with measured, deliberate movements. When the cup was ready, it announced: ‘Hana, your coffee is ready.’
The Algro Hand V5, resting between pours at the Tron One station, its fingers curved around nothing in particular, waiting for the next instruction.
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