Training an agent to achieve particular goals or perform desired behaviors is often accomplished through reinforcement learning, especially in the absence of expert demonstrations. However, supporting novel goals or behaviors through reinforcement learning requires the ad-hoc design of appropriate reward functions, which quickly becomes intractable. Toaddress thischallenge, wepropose Text-AwareDiffusion forPolicyLearning (TADPoLe), which uses apretrained, frozen text-conditioned diffusion model to compute dense zero-shot reward signals for text-aligned policy learning.

CES 2026 showed that humanoid and embodied AI systems still have a long way to go before delivering real-world value, particularly in homes. At the same time, there is a growing sense that the path to deployment is becoming clearer. A consensus has emerged across platforms: multi-camera perception, often wrist-mounted, paired with VLA models, is sufficient for most tasks. Increasingly, tactile hands and VTLA software are added. There was a clear split between industrial and home-care humanoids.

What could possibly go wrong? The 4-foot-tall humanoid robot that's in front of me seems, quite honestly, a bit drunk. After 30 seconds or so it abruptly stops, then strides toward me with an arm outstretched. The little robot is at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, on the banks of the Huangpu river in Shanghai. The convention center is teeming with humanoids --dancing ones, box-toting ones, robot dog-walking ones doing circuits around trade show booths. A few lie slumped in a corner as their batteries recharge. A Unitree humanoid robot modified for experimental purposes at the BAAI.

CES always has its share of attention-grabbing robots. But this year in particular seemed to be a landmark year for robotics. The advancement in AI technology has not only given robots better "brains," it's enabled new levels of autonomy and given rise to an ambitious, if sometimes questionable, vision for our robot-filled future. From sassy humanoids to AI-powered pets and chore-handling assistants, we sought out as many cute, strange and capable robots as we could find in Las Vegas. These are the ones that made the biggest impression.

Sharpa's ping-pong playing, blackjack dealing humanoid is working overtime at CES 2026 The company's super dexterous robotic hand, SharpaWave, allows it to pull individual playing cards from a deck. There were no idle hands at Sharpa's CES booth. The company's humanoid may have been the busiest bot at show, autonomously playing ping-pong, dealing blackjack games and taking selfies with passersby. The hand has 22 active degrees of freedom, according to the company, allowing for precise and intricate finger movements. It mirrored my gestures as I wiggled my hand in front of its camera, getting everything mostly right, which was honestly pretty cool.

China's humanoids were everywhere at America's top tech show An attendee shakes hands with a PaXini humanoid robot during the annual CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Wednesday. One of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's worries was on full display at technology show CES in Las Vegas this week. Chinese-made human-like robots were everywhere across the exhibition floor, playing table tennis, sweeping floors and practicing kung fu. China's latest robotics innovations were delivered to the heart of America's technology showcase, serving a constant reminder of the technological race between the world's two biggest economies. While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices hosted keynotes touting ever faster artificial intelligence chips, a legion of budding Chinese robot creators occupied much humbler booths with machines giving life to the notion of physical AI.

Google DeepMind and Boston Dynamics are teaming up to integrate Gemini into a humanoid robot called Atlas. Google DeepMind is teaming up with Boston Dynamics to give its humanoid robots the intelligence required to navigate unfamiliar environments and identify and manipulate objects--precisely the kinds of capabilities needed to perform manual labor. The collaboration, announced at CES in Las Vegas, will see Google's Gemini Robotics model deployed on various Boston Dynamics' robots, including a humanoid called Atlas and a robot dog called Spot . The companies plan to test Gemini-powered Atlas robots at auto factories belonging to Hyundai, Boston Dynamics' parent company, in the coming months. The move is an early look at a future where humanoids are able to quickly master a wide range of tasks.