Ameca
Ameca is Engineered Arts' expressive humanoid, unveiled in December 2021 and shown at CES 2022, best known for realistic facial expressions and LLM-driven conversation. Gen 2 arrived in 2023 with a modular design. It is used for research, exhibitions and events rather than physical work.
Willy Jackson via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
We have not sat down with this one. The score below is computed from the data we hold, and the facts on this page are sourced. It is not on sale, so there is nothing to recommend.
How the score is built
Capability is what the machine physically does. Value compares it with others at a similar price, not with the whole market. Buyability asks whether you can really order one. Ecosystem is the software and community around it. Proof is what it has done in the field, which is where most humanoids score badly and should.
- Status
- Commercial
- Category
- entertainment
- First revealed
- December 2021
- Form
- upper-body
- Height
- n/a
- Weight
- n/a
- Payload
- n/a
- Degrees of freedom
- n/a
- Battery
- n/a
- Runtime
- n/a
- Walking speed
- n/a
- Actuation
- electric
- Units deployed (est.)
- not disclosed
- Teleoperation
- partial
Where it stands
Sold and rented to museums, research labs and events; Gen 2 since 2023; legs remain experimental.
What stands out
- Viral facial expression video December 2021
- Gen 2 modular platform 2023
- Conversational demos with GPT models
Hands, sensors, brain
- Sensors: cameras in eyes, chest camera, microphones
- AI stack: Engineered Arts Tritium software with cloud LLMs (GPT and others) for conversation
Price and volume
commercial pricing on request
Index position
In the Humanoid Index, which ranks on shipped reality rather than value for money, Ameca sits at #37 of 107 with 40 points: deployment 20/50, autonomy 12/30, availability 8/20. See that method.
Where Ameca works.
| Customer | Site | Sector | Task | Since | Status | Units | Autonomy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Museum of the Future | Museum of the Future, Dubai, United Arab Emirates | entertainment | Greeting and conversing with visitors | 2022 | active | n/d | mixed |
Milestones.
Engineered Arts reveals Ameca
Engineered Arts posts a video of Ameca, a grey skinned humanoid with highly expressive facial actuation, which goes viral before its CES 2022 debut. Ameca becomes the standard demonstration robot for conversational AI at trade shows and museums.
Europe's humanoids: who builds them and what you can order
31 of the 182 humanoids on record come from seven European countries. Three can be ordered, two have a price, and the dearest of those is $75,000 for a robot that does not walk.
Startups, automakers, universities: who builds humanoids
108 makers, nine kinds. Startups hold 37 of the 44 humanoids you can order. Automakers, universities, big tech, conglomerates and NASA hold 45 robots between them and sell none of them.
The uncanny valley, and why the newest humanoids have no face
Masahiro Mori warned in 1970 that a nearly human face repels. Of the 182 humanoids in our record, four describe one, and none of the four does physical work for a customer.
Other robots by Engineered Arts.
Sources
- 01AmecaEngineered Arts
- 02Ameca (robot)Wikipedia
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