Robotics Showcases, New Partnerships, and a Dose of Reality

This past week was packed with excitement, notable robot showcases at Consensus in Hong Kong, insights into robotics technology, and behind-the-scenes developments at Auki. Here’s everything we got up to!

Consensus Hong Kong: Terri Steals the Show

We brought our Unitree G1 humanoid robot, Terri MechKenna, to Consensus Hong Kong, and he quickly became the event's star attraction. Terri shook hands with Hong Kong government officials, featured in thousands of photos, and significantly outperformed having a traditional booth.

“Having that robot was way better than a booth. We got invited absolutely everywhere. The robot was super popular.”

We’ll soon release an in-depth, honest review video covering the robot's real-world capabilities and limitations.

New Robots at Auki Headquarters

Several new robots arrived from PadBots:

• Greeter robots designed for hospitality environments like hotels and hospitals.
• Security robots for autonomous patrolling.
• Delivery robots for restaurants.

Interestingly, each robot currently maps environments independently, making them non-interoperable—even with other robots from the same manufacturer. Connecting these robots to the posemesh will enable interoperability, dramatically simplifying deployment and collaboration.

“That’s the state of robotics today—each robot is its own little universe,” Nils highlighted.

Figure Robotics Demo: Impressive but Limited

We discussed the recent viral demo from the American robotics company, Figure. While visually impressive—with collaborative object handling—careful analysis revealed limitations:

• The demo likely involved multiple takes, not continuous autonomy.
• Robots did not demonstrate actual locomotion or significant spatial awareness.
• Figure also recently dropped OpenAI, opting for its proprietary AI, Helix, signaling shifts in the robotics and AI industries.

“There’s a lot of wow factor, but practically, much cheaper robots could do similar tasks better.”

Robotics Reality Check

Despite the excitement surrounding humanoid robots, practical applications remain limited. Non-humanoid robots are often more effective for specific tasks, such as greeting guests or patrolling areas.

“Out of all the robots we've shown you, the humanoid currently provides the least practical value. It's more of a novelty.”

Strategic Partnerships and Future Plans

We had encouraging discussions with major companies, including a significant automotive firm in China, focusing on coordinated autonomous driving solutions. Additionally, meetings with Layer 1 blockchain platforms have reinforced growing interest in our decentralized visual positioning technology.

Upcoming Activities and Community Engagement

We’re attending upcoming conferences in Denver, potentially bringing Terri along—though logistics remain challenging. The community continues to grow, and we encourage motivated individuals to reach out for job opportunities, even if positions aren’t formally listed.

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Watch the whole update on X.

About Auki

Auki is making the physical world accessible to AI by building the real world web: away for robots and digital devices like smart glasses and phones to browse, navigate, and search physical locations.

70% of the world economy is still tied to physical locations and labor, so making the physical world accessible to AI represents a 3X increase in the TAM of AI in general. Auki's goal is to become the decentralized nervous system of AI in the physical world, providing collaborative spatial reasoning for the next 100bn devices on Earth and beyond.

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