ManufacturingAs we are edging toward a “ChatGPT moment” for robotics, as investor Vinod Khosla recently predicted, today's most relevant players are building friendlier robots. Hugging Face, the $4.5 billion AI startup best known as a hub for developers working with ML models just released Reachy Mini: small, wide-eyed, and looking more like a cross between a desk toy and a Pixar sidekick than a harbinger of automation. But beneath the approachable exterior is a likely strategic play.
Launched at $299, it is aimed squarely at developers and educators who have been priced out of hardware innovation for years. With facial tracking, animated antennas, microphones, and a speaker, it’s full service capable, so to speak. Developers can code AI applications in Python and share them via Hugging Face’s platform, giving Reachy Mini a ready-made ecosystem. But its biggest advantage may be one that’s harder to quantify: it looks friendly.
“We want to have a model where we release tons of things,” said Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue to VentureBeat. “Maybe we’ll release 100 prototypes a year... maybe fully assembled, fully integrated with the software stack, there’s going to be just a couple of them.”
