Meet Sprout: A Friendly New Robot Designed to Feel at Home With Humans

BY EMMANUEL OGBONNA

As a small robot named Sprout rolls through a Manhattan office, nodding its boxy head, lifting its windshield wiper-like eyebrows and offering a tentative handshake with its grippers, it is immediately clear that it is not trying to intimidate anyone. Unlike the tall, metallic humanoids being developed by companies such as Tesla, Sprout looks deliberately gentle, approachable and even playful.

That design choice is intentional. Standing just 3.5 feet tall, about one meter, Sprout is built to meet people at eye level, including children. Its body is wrapped in soft, padded sage-green foam, giving it a friendly, almost toy-like appearance that invites conversation rather than caution. Fauna Robotics, the New York-based startup behind Sprout, believes this charm is not a side effect but the foundation of a new kind of robotics industry.

After more than two years of quiet research and development, Fauna Robotics unveiled Sprout publicly on Tuesday. The company hopes the robot will help spark a new wave of “approachable” humanoids designed not for factories or warehouses, but for homes, schools, offices and other social environments where humans and machines may one day coexist more closely.

Although advances in artificial intelligence, motors and battery technology have accelerated humanoid development worldwide, Sprout stands out in the U.S. market for its focus on emotional comfort and accessibility. Its expressive lights and animated movements echo the friendly robots imagined in decades of science fiction, from animated films to children’s books, rather than the dystopian visions that often dominate modern robotics.

“Most people in this industry draw inspiration from darker science fiction,” said Rob Cochran, Fauna’s co-founder and chief executive. “We look to characters like WALL-E, Baymax and Rosie from The Jetsons. Those robots were helpers, companions and friends.”

Fauna’s business strategy also departs from the conventional path. Many companies developing humanoid robots expect their first commercial success to come from industrial settings, such as warehouses or automotive assembly lines. Tesla’s Optimus and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas are both being positioned for factory work before any broader consumer use.

Fauna is skipping that stage altogether. Sprout is aimed primarily at developers, researchers and designers who want to experiment with humanoid interaction and build new applications. In that sense, the robot functions as a platform, similar to how early personal computers and smartphones enabled entire ecosystems of software development. That ambition comes with a high price tag: Sprout costs about $50,000.

For some buyers, that price is not unusual. Universities and startups already spend similar amounts on humanoid robots from overseas manufacturers, particularly Chinese firms such as Unitree, whose lightweight robots are common at research labs and robotics competitions. However, tariffs and security concerns have made some U.S. customers hesitant to rely on foreign hardware.

Cochran said Fauna is among the first American companies actively shipping humanoid robots as a developer platform, and the company has personally delivered its initial units. Early customers include Disney and Boston Dynamics, an endorsement that underscores industry interest in Sprout’s design philosophy.

Marc Theermann, chief strategy officer at Boston Dynamics, said seeing Sprout in person offers a glimpse of what personal robotics could become. He noted that the robot is ready to operate almost immediately after unpacking, and that its size and demeanor make it easier to imagine welcoming such a machine into everyday human spaces.

Inside Fauna’s Flatiron District headquarters, Sprout demonstrates a range of abilities that prioritize interaction over strength. It cannot lift heavy objects, but it can dance, pick up toys, rise from a seated position and navigate long walks across wooden floors. During a demonstration earlier this month, staff members remotely guided the robot using a video game controller, a smartphone app and a virtual reality headset. Sprout can also operate semi-autonomously, following preplanned routes such as checking the contents of an office refrigerator.

Its movement is slow but deliberate, and its balance systems are designed to handle unexpected obstacles. During testing, Sprout briefly stumbled while avoiding a person and clipping a low table wheel, but quickly regained its footing and continued walking, mimicking the recovery of a human who momentarily loses balance.

“If someone steps in front of it, it won’t crash into them,” said Ana Pervan, a research scientist at Fauna who works on mapping and navigation. “It will replan its path and go around.”

Pervan, who previously worked on self-driving cars, said the appeal of Sprout lies in its personality. A longtime science fiction fan, she described the robot as friendly without trying too hard to appear human.

“It’s not creepy,” she said. “It feels more like a companion or a buddy than a machine pretending to be a person.”

The history of personal robotics is littered with failures, and Fauna’s founders are keenly aware of the risks. Even iRobot, maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaner and one of the sector’s few long-term successes, recently filed for bankruptcy protection. Other once-promising ventures, including Anki and Jibo, collapsed despite widespread attention and early enthusiasm.

Cochran believes timing is the critical difference. He argues that earlier efforts were limited by immature technology, whereas today’s AI systems, sensors and hardware make it possible to build robots that are both useful and emotionally engaging.

His co-founder, chief technology officer Josh Merel, brings deep expertise in robot locomotion and artificial intelligence. Merel previously worked at Google’s DeepMind, focusing on training robots in simulated environments, an approach that has since become mainstream. He later collaborated with Cochran at CTRL-labs, a neurotechnology company acquired by Facebook in 2019.

Both founders agree that many modern humanoids project strength and power at the expense of safety and comfort. Heavy, industrial designs may inspire confidence in factories, but they can feel threatening in personal spaces.

“If a large, heavy robot falls on you, that’s a serious danger,” Cochran said. “We wanted something people would feel safe around.”

To achieve that vision, Fauna brought in Anthony Moschella, a designer who worked on Peloton’s fitness equipment and drew inspiration from the minimalist robots of classic space films. Now Fauna’s vice president of hardware, Moschella said cultural awareness is often overlooked in robotics.

“We’re building something people actually want to be around,” he said. “Design matters as much as engineering.”

What Sprout ultimately becomes will depend on how developers use it and what new applications emerge. For Cochran, however, one measure of success is already clear. He keeps a short video on his phone showing his two-year-old twins jumping excitedly as Sprout greets them, a reaction he sees as validation of the robot’s core mission.

“If kids aren’t afraid of it,” he said, “we’re doing something right.”