Meta builds its first humanoid robot

PLUS: Walmart goes full-Amazon on robots

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Jennifer Mossalgue, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma & Zach Mink
November 02, 2026

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Meta has reportedly built a humanoid of its own. Max stands five feet tall, weighs about 100 pounds, and is designed to help with chores.

Meta built it in three months with Chinese robotics firm Fourier, and a second version that can climb stairs is already in development.

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Meta built a humanoid to do your chores

  • Walmart commits $6B to warehouse robots

  • Toyota is building Waymo’s next robotaxi

  • OKA launches screenless mushroom robot

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

META

Image source: Fourier (Fourier’s GR-3 humanoid)

The Rundown: Meta built a five-foot humanoid robot prototype called Max to perform household chores, and it took the company just three months, with help from Chinese robotics firm Fourier, The Information reports.

The details:

  • The prototype gives Meta a physical platform for training and testing AI systems that can perceive, move, and manipulate objects in the real world.

  • Max weighs about 106 lb. and stands 5ft tall, with a display that shows facial expressions, a built-in speaker, and hands designed to pick up small objects.

  • Max reportedly runs on Nvidia’s Jetson Thor, a Blackwell-based robotics computer with up to 2,070 FP4 TFLOPS and 128GB of memory at 130W.

  • Meta has reportedly been building Max 2 since Sept., with a redesigned torso and hands, a projector, and extra sensors to handle stairs.

Why it matters: Bloomberg reported last year that Meta had set up a team to build robot hardware, and this year Meta bought a startup that develops AI for robots. Max is the first physical machine reported from that effort, and Meta built it with a Chinese partner to compete with humanoids like Tesla’s Optimus.

WALMART

Image source: Symbotic

The Rundown: Walmart is putting a whopping $6B more behind Symbotic’s warehouse automation, a vote of confidence in purpose-built AI machines — not humanoids — to speed up its supply chain.

The details:

  • Walmart has committed $6B in additional spending on Symbotic systems, including deployments across 25 U.S. regional distribution centers.

  • Symbotic automates the warehouse core: storing cases, moving inventory, picking goods, and building outbound loads. Walmart is also funding $125M in new R&D around picking, racking, and inventory flow.

  • Symbotic already has billions in Walmart-linked work, plus a separate deal that could bring its systems to hundreds of Walmart stores.

  • Amazon has deployed more than 1M robots, while AutoStore and Ocado are scaling their own highly automated warehouse systems.

Why it matters: The $6B deal comes just weeks after a WSJ report detailed Walmart’s automation headaches, from cartons its machines can’t handle to robots that break down too often. Walmart’s response: “New technology is never perfect on day one.” Still, it’s spending billions to push the technology forward.

WAYMO

Image source: Waymo

The Rundown: Waymo’s next robotaxi will be built on a Toyota assembly line: the two companies plan to start testing self-driving bZ4X SUVs in Japan in 2027 and then in the UK.

The details:

  • Toyota will begin producing Waymo-equipped bZ4Xs at its Takaoka plant, with testing and validation in Japan starting in 2027.

  • Waymo says it will start with right-hand-drive markets — Japan and the UK — then potentially expand elsewhere, though neither company has given timelines.

  • Toyota will install Waymo’s sensors and computers on its assembly line, skipping the costly retrofit work Waymo now does to turn finished EVs into robotaxis.

  • Waymo is currently testing Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Japan and still plans a pilot using them in 2027, so the Toyota cars won’t be its only robotaxis there.

Why it matters: Robotaxis can’t scale if every vehicle needs to be painstakingly rebuilt after leaving the factory; Toyota gives Waymo a path toward automotive-scale production instead. Toyota already mass-produces bZ4X robotaxis for China’s Pony.ai, and it’s still exploring the Waymo Driver for cars people own.

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HOME ROBOTS

Image source: OKA

The Rundown: Startup OKA (One Kind Artifact) unveiled Mori, a 12-in. home robot shaped like a mushroom lamp. It has no screen and no voice assistant, and it communicates only through light, sound, and small movements.

The details:

  • Mori features a wool-blend fabric body, a glowing cap, and a camera hidden in its nose, and it retracts into a plain lamp when you pat its head.

  • It has no screen or voice assistant and communicates through light, sound, and movement, including nature sounds like rainfall and campfires.

  • OKA says Mori processes everything on the device, keeps facial data encrypted and never uploads it, and mutes the mics on a double-tap.

  • The battery-powered robot costs $649 in a limited First Access run that includes two years of Nature Time soundscapes, with delivery expected in late Dec.

Why it matters: Mori sits between Casio’s $429 Moflin and Groove X’s Lovot, which costs ¥599,500 (~$4K) in Japan plus a monthly care plan. Samsung also targeted this category with Ballie but shelved it in Jan., and Apple’s Siri AI-powered tabletop robot, reportedly to be priced at around $1K, isn’t due until 2027.

QUICK HITS

Agility Robotics plans to go public: the Digit maker expects its SPAC deal with Churchill Capital Corp XI to raise about $465M before expenses.

San Francisco robotics startup Lightberry said its Lumi humanoid has become the first humanoid granted a U.S. national-security conditional approval.

Erik Finman’s SENTRY backpack is designed to give soldiers a portable defense against kamikaze drones, detecting threats and firing interceptors to stop them.

Google Cloud and NASA tested a robotic system that can fetch and handle medical gear for future deep-space crews.

The $20-an-hour robot-dog-walking job comes with an unexpected catch: when the machine breaks down, workers may have to carry the 33 lb. robot back themselves.

A new Swiss startup wants to shrink retinal-surgery robots for everyday operating rooms, developing a compact robotic head designed to work with existing systems.

MIT tested tiny magnets implanted in residual muscles to track movement, potentially allowing amputees to control robotic prosthetic limbs more naturally. 

Y Combinator–backed Aviern flew a self-piloting cargo-aircraft prototype and ultimately aims to move 1K lb. of freight 1K miles for under $1K per flight.

Chinese robot makers are shifting from wild hardware demos to a race to develop smarter “embodied AI” that can learn, adapt, and make humanoids genuinely useful.

Audi is testing AI-powered mobile humanoids to pick, sort, and sequence car parts in its factories, potentially automating tasks that conventional robots struggle with.

Scientists are developing magnetic, AI-guided tiles that can self-assemble in space into large structures, potentially enabling future space stations and habitats.

A Philadelphia artist built a handmade, remote-controlled robot as a playful protest against the growing presence of autonomous delivery bots on city streets.

That's it for today!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team