--- title: This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like description: Its name is Jibo, and it’s a sign of how emotion will play a key role in the integration of robots in our daily lives. canonical: https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-11T21:05:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:45:46.742Z article:section: Business og:title: This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like og:description: Its name is Jibo, and it’s a sign of how emotion will play a key role in the integration of robots in our daily lives. og:url: https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like twitter:description: Its name is Jibo, and it’s a sign of how emotion will play a key role in the integration of robots in our daily lives. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like by [Erin Griffith](/author/fortune/) ## Erin Griffith Aug 11, 2014 9:05 PM CUT by [Erin Griffith](/author/fortune/) ## Erin Griffith Aug 11, 2014 9:05 PM CUT  This post is in partnership with Fortune, which offers the latest business and finance news. Read the article below originally published at [Fortune.com](http://fortune.com/2014/08/10/jibo-robot-emotion-hotel/ "undefined"). At first glance, Jibo looks a bit like Wall-E’s robot girlfriend. Both Jibo, a real robot, and Wall-E’s girlfriend, the fictional Pixar character, have the look of a futuristic Apple product: reflective white plastic, round curves, a black screen for a “face,” and smooth swiveling movements. But Jibo’s _raison d’être_ is slightly more in line with Rosie, the robot maid from the 1960s animated television series _The Jetsons_, and its operating system is more akin to the one employed by Samantha, the artificially intelligent character from the 2013 Spike Jonze film _Her_. (One key difference: Jibo is male, according to its makers.) Jibo is described as a “family robot” because it is able to see, hear, speak, learn, and help families with a variety of tasks around the house. It—he?—can “relate” by expressing itself in natural language, using “social and emotive cues so you understand each other better.” Jibo is meant to be a companion. It’s the creation of a team of robot architects, cloud computing engineers, animators, conversational technologists, and human-robot interaction engineers. Jibo, Inc. is backed by $5.59 million in venture funding from investors including Charles River Ventures, Fairhaven Capital Partners, Osage University Partners, and angel backers. So far, people like Jibo. A [crowdfunding campaign](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo-the-world-s-first-family-robot "undefined"), launched last month, raked in more than $1.5 million from more than 3,500 people, handily surpassing its $100,000 target. (The Boston-based company does not expect to ship its first units, priced at $499 each, until the 2015 winter holiday season. The crowdfunding campaign is designed to get developers excited about building apps for the robot, it said.) Naturally, I had to meet Jibo. Off to a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan, then, where two Jibos and Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, the robot’s creator, awaited me. The robot is not yet fully functioning, it turns out. I watched a prepared demo where Jibo, about a foot tall, turned to look me in the eye. This was disarming at first, as if I was being followed by a security camera. Once he started talking to me, it began to feel more natural—as natural as a robot in a 1980s science fiction movie, anyway. Unlike his lesser robotic peers, or, say, a smartphone, Jibo did not rudely buzz or ding when there was a new message to communicate to me. He politely said, “Excuse me, Erin,” and waited for me to respond before continuing. For the rest of the story, go to [Fortune.com](http://fortune.com/2014/08/10/jibo-robot-emotion-hotel/ "undefined"). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/"},"headline":"This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like","datePublished":"2014-08-11T21:05:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:45:46.742Z","description":"Its name is Jibo, and it’s a sign of how emotion will play a key role in the integration of robots in our daily lives","url":"https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/","keywords":["Tech","robotics"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Erin Griffith"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3100602/jibo-robot-2/","name":"This Is What a 'Family Robot' Looks Like"}}]}] ```