Awkward question: What will be the ‘killer app’ for humanoid robots?

Tesla’s latest humanoid demonstration – a kung fu routine performed by its Optimus robot for actor Jared Leto – was clearly designed to impress.

But, as dramatic and as thought-provoking as it was, the spectacle raised an awkward question: what will be the “killer app” for humanoid robots?

“Killer app” is a phrase to mean the defining use case that makes a technology indispensable. In every major technology shift, there’s been a defining use case – a killer app – that turned novelty into necessity. For early personal computers, it was spreadsheets – programs like VisiCalc and later Excel that justified owning a machine running DOS.

In mobile technology, the BlackBerry transformed from a curiosity into a corporate essential by allowing executives to read and send email on the move – a simple function that reshaped global communication.

Humanoid robots haven’t yet found their equivalent. They can walk, wave, and even fold laundry in promotional videos, but they still lack that single, indispensable purpose that would make one worth buying.

It won’t be fighting or dancing – the market already has enough spectacle. The “killer app” for humanoids, if it ever arrives, will have to combine real-world utility, human trust, and price accessibility.

That goal remains elusive, and some researchers warn that humanoids are still fragile, easily hacked, and technically over-promised. Yet competition is fierce – and as history shows, breakthroughs often follow hype.

Humanoid evolution

Humanoid robotics has entered a phase that looks a lot like the personal-computer boom of the 1980s: a rush of companies, a flood of prototypes, and very few clear use cases.

Every week, new names join the race – from Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Robotics in the United States to Unitree, Fourier Intelligence, and Noetix in China.

Each promises a new dawn of “general-purpose” robots able to work, assist, or even entertain. Yet most of these machines share the same fundamental limitations: they can walk and balance impressively, but they still struggle with dexterity, situational awareness, and the simple tasks that humans find trivial.

The question facing engineers and investors alike is whether any of these projects will discover the breakthrough – the killer app – that justifies the existence of humanoids beyond research labs and marketing videos.

It might be a household robot that reliably folds laundry and washes dishes, or an industrial helper that can handle unpredictable warehouse work without retraining. Or it might be something no one has yet imagined.

Until that moment arrives, humanoids remain in what one researcher called the “demo age” – capable enough to impress, but not indispensable. The next few years will determine whether they evolve into practical tools or remain spectacular curiosities on the frontier of automation.

Differentiation calculus

The humanoid boom has quickly turned into a crowded marketplace. Tesla’s Optimus, Figure 01, Agility Robotics’ Digit, 1X’s Eve, Fourier’s GR-1, and Unitree’s H2 all share a similar blueprint: bipedal locomotion, a pair of dexterous arms, camera-based vision, and electric actuators.

Many even resemble each other physically, as though converging on a single design language – silver limbs, smooth faces, and minimalist joints.

Under the surface, their architectures aren’t wildly different either. Most rely on torque-controlled electric motors, lightweight aluminum or carbon-fiber skeletons, and deep-learning-based control systems trained in simulation.

Software may be the new battleground, but even there, progress often looks iterative rather than revolutionary. As Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot, has said, “We keep reinventing the same robot.”

A few companies have tried to differentiate themselves. Figure AI built its reputation on demonstrating household chores – folding laundry, tidying tables – tasks that remain elusive for most humanoids because of their demand for fine motor control and tactile precision.

Agility’s Digit focuses on logistics, optimized for moving boxes in structured warehouse environments. In China, Unitree, Noetix, and Xiaomi have made humanoids the centerpiece of national robotics ambitions, each blending agile motion with consumer-level pricing strategies.

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