Everything interesting worth knowing in robotics this week.
what's worth knowing... #2
Amazon Acquires Fauna Robotics, to develop humain robots!
Amazon has acquired Fauna Robotics, a New York-based startup that debuted its humanoid robot Sprout in January. The 3.5-foot-tall robot is built for friendly social interactions rather than industrial tasks, capable of dancing, grabbing small objects, and walking around on its own. Priced at $50,000, Sprout is sold primarily as a software developer platform to academic and corporate research labs, with early customers including Disney.
The deal adds a consumer-facing robotics dimension to Amazon’s already extensive automation efforts, which include over one million robots deployed across its warehouse operations. Fauna’s team will continue operating in New York under the name “Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company,” with a focus on finding new ways to improve customer experiences. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The move comes after Amazon’s attempt to acquire robot vacuum maker iRobot fell through in 2024 due to regulatory pushback in both Europe and the United States. With Alexa already embedded in millions of homes, bringing Sprout into the fold could signal a renewed push into consumer robotics, this time through a more socially oriented approach rather than household utility.
AGIBOT introduces New Generation of AI Robots, Models & physical Robotic Components!
AGIBOT used its 2026 Partner Conference to introduce a new generation of embodied AI products built around its “One Robotic Body, Three Intelligences” full-stack architecture. The lineup includes four new robotic platforms and several AI models aimed at moving embodied intelligence from demonstrations into practical deployment across industrial, commercial, and service environments. Co-founder and CTO Peng Zhihui framed the direction as shifting from showcasing capabilities to delivering measurable outcomes, with robots integrating into real human workflows rather than operating as lab curiosities.
The hardware announcements cover a broad range of use cases. The AGIBOT A3 is a 173 cm humanoid weighing 55 kg, designed for entertainment and customer engagement with features like centimeter-level swarm positioning for synchronized 100-robot performances and a 10-second battery swap. The G2 Air is a lightweight single-arm mobile manipulator built for retail, hospitality, and logistics, with the added capability of capturing training data in real time during task execution. AGIBOT also introduced the OmniHand 3 Ultra-T, a tendon-driven dexterous hand with 22 plus 3 degrees of freedom and full-hand 3D tactile sensing, along with the D2 Max, described as the first all-terrain Level 3 autonomous quadruped robot suited for patrol, inspection, and rescue scenarios.
Beyond robots, AGIBOT unveiled MEgo, a body-free data collection system that lets human operators gather multimodal training data across real-world settings without needing robotic hardware. The system combines a gripper, a head-mounted capture unit, and a processing engine to produce synchronized vision, motion, and tactile datasets ready for model training. Together, the announcements point to AGIBOT building out both the physical platforms and the data infrastructure needed to scale embodied AI, positioning the company for the broader industrial rollout that many in the sector expect to accelerate through 2026.
Kassow targets the industrial cobot middle ground with two new high-payload models!
Kassow Robots, the Copenhagen-based arm of Bosch Rexroth, has rolled out two new seven-axis collaborative robots, the KR 1824 and KR 1240, aimed at higher-payload tasks that have traditionally sat outside the cobot category. The models are being shown at Hannover Messe as part of Bosch Rexroth’s CU.BE digital showcase. What sets Kassow apart in a crowded cobot market is its seven-axis configuration, which gives the arms more reach and maneuverability in tight spaces than the standard six-axis designs used by most competitors. With the new models, the company is targeting manufacturers looking to automate palletizing, machine tending, and heavier material handling without committing to a full industrial robot cell.
The engineering updates on these units are more substantial than a typical incremental release. Joint torque has gone up by 50 percent, wrist speeds by over 20 percent, and mechanical stiffness by 40 percent, which together translate into steadier handling of heavier loads and shorter cycle times. Both models come with the option of an EDGE integrated controller, a design choice worth paying attention to because it removes the separate control cabinet that usually ships with cobots, making mobile and modular deployments far more practical. For factories experimenting with reconfigurable production lines or shifting cobots between stations, that footprint reduction is a meaningful operational advantage.
The broader context here is the blurring line between collaborative and industrial robotics. Cobots have historically been capped at lighter payloads and slower speeds to keep them safe around humans, but market demand has pushed manufacturers to extend what cobots can do without crossing into caged industrial territory. Christoph Rieger, Kassow’s Chief Sales Officer, positioned the new models as filling exactly that middle ground. Whether the category holds up under that pressure is still an open question, since heavier payloads introduce safety tradeoffs that the industry is still working through. For now, Kassow’s release gives Bosch Rexroth a stronger hand in a segment where Universal Robots, Fanuc, and several Chinese players are all competing for the same factory floor.