KIDS

Jeff Bezos made a bold bet in 2017. A sci-fi and robotics enthusiast, Bezos was convinced that consumers would have a robot in their home in the not-too-distant future.

The Amazon founder and then-CEO told a group of the company's top device executives to get to work on building one, and within a few years, the team came up with the $1,450 Astro.

The public got its first look at Astro, essentially an Alexa-equipped tablet on wheels that can autonomously navigate a home, recognize faces and act as a roving security monitor, when it rolled on stage at Amazon's fall 2021 event.

But it never evolved beyond an invite-only product. Astro shipped to just a few thousand customers, some of whom now believe the robot's days are numbered. The company also released an Astro for businesses in 2023, before sunsetting it less than a year later.

Amazon isn't giving up on Bezos' dream of a household robot just yet, despite its stumbles with Astro.

Over the past several months, the company has assembled a new team that's working on a "new-to-world robot product," according to a CNBC analysis of job posts.

"Robots are about to step out of the movies and into our homes," a recent job listing for an engineer, which has since been removed, stated. The post details a product capable of navigating "dynamic home environments" and "autonomous operation alongside family members."

Amazon is known for making long-term bets at the risk of "being misunderstood" in the short term if it gives the company an early advantage in new markets, like it did with the Alexa voice assistant or Kindle e-reader.

CEO Andy Jassy reminded investors of this approach in his latest annual letter, where he said artificial intelligence and robotics were among the "biggest inflections of our lifetime."

"We try to anticipate what will make customers' lives easier and better every day, and invent the next inflection," Jassy wrote.

Analysts also expect the humanoid market to surge in the coming years. Barclays forecast in a January report that the global market, which it currently values at $2 billion to $3 billion, could reach roughly $40 billion by 2035, or as high as $200 billion "under the most optimistic scenarios."

Earlier this year, Amazon redeployed much of the team behind Astro and brought in an MIT roboticist to work on the home robot project, LinkedIn profiles show.

It also made a splashy acquisition to supercharge the effort.

In March, Amazon scooped up New York-based Fauna Robotics, which has built a 3.5-foot-tall humanoid called Sprout. At the time, the company said Fauna would become part of a new division dubbed the Personal Robotics Group.

Some Personal Robotics Group staffers previously worked in Amazon's Lab126 R&D unit, which has been behind many of Amazon's most successful consumer hardware products, like the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speakers, Fire TV and Fire Tablet. Lab126 was also behind one of Amazon's biggest flops, the Fire Phone.

It's unclear what kind of home robot the group is developing, or the types of tasks it could handle, but a June job posting hinted at an effort to "create robots that are not just functional, but delightful."

Amazon could be looking to adapt Fauna's robots for homes or businesses. The Sprout humanoid, which was designed to be "friendly and capable" with expressive yellow eyebrows, has primarily been used by developers, as well as commercial and academic researchers.

An Amazon job posting published online in October describes a "Field Support Engineer" who can assist with customer support and on-site repair, while another listing seeks a user experience designer to "define what it feels like to live with a Fauna robot."

"Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces," the listing states.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told CNBC in a statement that the company acquired Fauna because it's "committed to tackling the challenges that can unlock the personal robotics category."

"We're optimistic about a future where personal robots are helping people in meaningful ways in everyday life, and we intend to play an important role in making that future a reality," Glasser said.

Glasser noted that there remains a substantial gap between what's possible in a controlled lab and what's possible in settings like the living room or a lobby. Amazon is working with the robotics community to solve these challenges, he said.

Emily Lugo Velez has been living with the Astro in her North Carolina home since 2023. Lugo Velez, who worked in IT and now runs an AI advisory business, said she and her husband weren't fazed by the robot's $1,000-plus price tag and quickly joined the waitlist.

"We spent so much money on this thing," Lugo Velez, 52, said in an interview. "I feel like we're just stuck with it, and we'll let it run around the house until it eventually dies, then send it to the trash heap."

She said she still uses the device to check on her pets and appliances when she's out of the house. But beyond that, Astro has primarily become a party trick and a "trip hazard."

Most days, she tells Astro to go back to its charging dock.

Executives who worked on Astro had discussed making it more capable by attaching an arm to pick up and inspect items without breaking them, said Ken Washington, who served as Amazon's VP of consumer robotics until 2023.

He told CNBC that he pushed for a bipedal robot, but leadership disagreed.

"We had Jeff [Bezos] in for show and tells and reviews, and I watched his body language pretty closely," Washington said. "I think he was disappointed with the lack of functionality, but I think he was impressed with its ability to map and navigate an undefined space under all lighting conditions."

For all the struggles with Astro, Amazon has a rich history in robotics.

The company acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012, which introduced mobile robots to its vast fulfillment network. Since then, Amazon's warehouse automation efforts have ballooned to over one million robots across its facilities that can pick, sort and ferry items to workers.

But homes offer unique obstacles for robots to navigate.

"The home is a completely different space," said Jeff Burnstein, president of the trade group Association for Advancing Automation, who has been in the robotics industry for 45 years. "Children, pets, grandparents, stairways. Nobody's home is set up exactly the same, so it's a much more challenging environment for a robot, certainly a robot that's walking."

Amazon may have more luck its second time around because the tools for building robots have advanced by "leaps and bounds" over the past few years, said Colin Angle, a co-founder and former CEO of Roomba maker iRobot.

Amazon attempted to acquire iRobot in 2022 before walking away from the deal two years later amid growing regulatory pushback.

"The toolkit that the Astro team had when they did it was clubs with nails in them, just incredibly primitive," Angle said. "It's difficult to understate just how much the robot industry has changed in the last two years."

Advances in AI models, sensors, battery systems and key mechanical components like actuators have spurred a new wave of development around robots for industrial and consumer use.

Elon Musk's Tesla has been developing its bipedal Optimus robots since 2021. Startups including Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, China's Unitree, Figure and 1X are also building humanoids. Agility Robotics, the company behind the bipedal Digit robot that counts Amazon as one of its backers, went public via a SPAC on Thursday.

Venture capital firms poured $33.4 billion into robotics and physical AI companies in the first half of the year, compared with $28.7 billion for all of 2025, according to PitchBook data.

Most humanoids are being developed with the manufacturing, logistics and healthcare industries in mind, but a growing group of companies are attempting to build robots for the home.

Apple is reportedly working on several home robot projects, including a tabletop device that resembles the Pixar lamp. Hugging Face, which Nvidia agreed to acquire for almost $13 billion in September, released the $399 Microduck in August. Angle, in May, launched a startup building fuzzy companion robots called Familiar Machines & Magic. Companies including Sunday, Tau and Nori claim their robots can help with household chores like folding laundry and clearing the table, but they remain mostly prototype or niche devices.

"[Astro] was so ahead of its time," Washington said. "It was such a big, massive leap that I felt like we had the right to own the home."

The robot's limited functionality and its $1,000-plus price tag likely made it a tough sell for many consumers, said a former Amazon employee who worked on Astro, who asked not to be named in order to speak frankly about the project.

"Our poor little Astro was around $2,000 when it came out, and that's a lot," the ex-employee said. "That's a lot for a consumer, and they want a robot that does a lot."

Amazon takes a long term view on new markets like personal robotics, and values what can be gained by being an early entrant, Glasser said.

Astro was designed to help Amazon build competencies and focus its ambition, he added. The company has applied many of the learnings, talent and experience from Astro into its other robotics efforts, Glasser said.

In Facebook groups for Astro owners, users have complained of diminished customer service and griped that Amazon's AIexa+ AI assistant isn't supported on Astro.

Some users have interpreted this to mean Astro could be discontinued. Others have tried to dump their units at a discount on eBay and Facebook Marketplace.

Glasser said Amazon continues to support Astro customers.

Joe Martin, an Astro owner who lives near Tucson, Arizona, said he feels he's gotten his money's worth out of the device over the past four years. He'd welcome another robot into his home if it could do more, like helping out around the house.

"Astro was $1,000 and it was pretty limited, but if it could bring a drink to me or dust furniture, I'd be intrigued by that," Martin, 65, said. "I think that's right around the corner."