About Figurobot
Bringing Intelligence Out of the Screen and Into the Real World
For too long, the world of robotics has felt cold.
Machines can calculate, respond, navigate, and execute commands with incredible precision. AI can speak, reason, remember, and create.
Yet most of that intelligence still lives behind a screen.
At Figurobot, we believe the next generation of AI should not only be intelligent. It should have presence.
A body you can see.
Movement you can understand.
Expressions you can feel.
And a personality that can become uniquely yours.
That belief is at the heart of everything we build.
Code, in Your Hands.
It Started With One Question
Figurobot was founded in 2024 by Jim Lu, a robotics entrepreneur who has spent more than two decades working across China’s robotics industry.
His journey began in 1998. In the years that followed, he participated in the early development of educational robotics and witnessed the rapid rise of the service robotics industry.
But throughout that journey, one question stayed with him:
Why do robots have to feel like machines?
Why should interaction with a robot always begin with commands?
Why couldn’t a robot have expression, personality, warmth, and the ability to become something people genuinely want to live with?
That question eventually became Figurobot.
We were founded with a clear ambition: to build humanoid robots that people do not simply use, but connect with.
Not another smart speaker with a face.
Not a static collectible.
Not a machine that only waits for instructions.
But a new kind of physical platform where robotics, AI, character design, creativity, and emotional interaction can come together.
Bringing Characters to Life
Our vision can be expressed in one simple idea:
Bring the characters you love to life.
Today, people already form powerful connections with digital characters.
They follow virtual idols, create original characters, collect figures, customize avatars, spend years with characters in games, and increasingly interact with AI personalities.
But those experiences remain largely digital.
We want to give them a physical form.
A character should be able to step beyond the screen—to stand, walk, look toward you, move with intention, express emotion, respond to your presence, and gradually develop its own identity through AI.
That is why Figurobot is not building a single fixed robot character.
We are building a physical platform for characters.
Your favorite character.
Your original creation.
Your AI companion.
Your imagination, embodied.
A New Kind of Desktop Humanoid
Figurobot focuses on desktop-scale embodied AI: humanoid robots small enough to naturally become part of everyday personal spaces, yet capable enough to deliver meaningful physical interaction.
Our technology is built around two core directions.
The first is a 60 cm full-body humanoid platform with more than 30 degrees of freedom, designed to support standing, walking, whole-body movement, expressive gestures, customization, and secondary development.
The second is our work in high-precision biomimetic facial expression, including compact facial actuation and micro-expression systems designed to translate robotic motion into more natural emotional communication.
Together, these technologies allow us to explore something beyond conventional robotics:
How can a machine communicate not only through words, but through presence, movement, and expression?
18 Years Behind a 60 cm Robot
Small humanoid robots create unusually difficult engineering problems.
The smaller the body becomes, the less room there is for actuators, electronics, sensors, structural components, thermal management, and control systems.
At the same time, users still expect fluid motion, precise control, reliability, and affordability.
Figurobot’s answer to this challenge is built on long-term actuator development.
Our co-founder and CTO began developing miniature digital servo systems in 2008. Over years of iteration, this work evolved into the compact joint actuator architecture behind today’s Figurobot humanoid platform.
That foundation allows us to integrate 30+ degrees of freedom into a 60 cm body, giving a desktop humanoid the ability to stand, walk, squat, turn, gesture, and perform coordinated whole-body motion.
For us, these are not specifications for the sake of specifications.
Every additional degree of freedom gives a character another way to communicate.
A turn of the head.
A change in posture.
A small hesitation.
An excited gesture.
A step toward you.
Movement becomes part of personality.
Technology Should Feel Human
Our development of NIA extends this philosophy into facial expression.
NIA is built around a simple principle: reduce the sense of unfamiliarity between humans and machines.
By combining emotional computing with high-precision biomimetic facial technology, including a 10-DOF micro-expression system, NIA is designed to transform mechanical parameters into something more meaningful: emotional expression.
Its technology brings together multimodal interaction, voice, vision, AI companionship, and expressive facial movement. The platform uses liquid silicone for its facial material and incorporates a microphone array and camera system for physical-world interaction.
For us, this work represents a broader shift.
Robotics should not only become more capable.
It should become more understandable, more expressive, and more emotionally intuitive.
From Product to Platform
We do not believe the future of humanoid robotics will be defined by one company creating one appearance, one personality, and one way to use a robot.
The future should be open to creators.
That is why customization is central to the Figurobot philosophy.
We envision an ecosystem where users can change appearances, design new character shells, create accessories, develop behaviors, customize AI personalities, share motion content, and build entirely new experiences around the same robotic foundation.
Developers should be able to extend what the robot can do.
Creators should be able to decide what it looks like.
And users should be able to decide who—or what—their robot becomes.
We believe advanced robotics becomes far more meaningful when ordinary people are able to participate in defining it.
Our Mission
To pioneer a new relationship between humans and machines—starting with something close enough to hold, touch, and make your own.
Technology should not remain distant.
AI should not remain trapped inside a screen.
Robotics should not belong only to laboratories, factories, or large corporations.
We want embodied intelligence to become something people can experience directly in everyday life.
Our Vision
To give everyone the power to define what the future of embodied AI looks like.
Not only engineers.
Not only robotics companies.
Not only technology giants.
Everyone.
Because the future of humanoid robotics should not be defined only by how much a machine can lift, how fast it can walk, or how many tasks it can automate.
It should also be defined by creativity.
Identity.
Expression.
Connection.
And the relationship between humans and the intelligent machines that will increasingly share our world.
At Figurobot, we are building toward that future—one character, one movement, and one interaction at a time.
Figurobot
Code, in Your Hands.
Bring Characters to Life.