Toymaker Anki wants its robot assistant to be a pet for adults

Someday, Boris Sofman wants families to sit down and debate: cat, dog or robot? Sofman is the chief executive and founder of Anki, a robotics company that's made its mark in the toy world since launching its first product in 2013, a set of smart racing cars. It followed that product's success with a toy robot called Cozmo in 2016, which the company says is the best-selling toy on Amazon in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. A new product, Vector, launched Tuesday on Kickstarter and offers the first hint of Anki's broader consumer robotics ambitions. "Our north star . . . is to have a robot in every home," Sofman said in an interview with The Washington Post.