Social & companion robotShipping
Realbotix Aria
The humanoid built for conversation and companionship — sold by the only public company doing it.
We haven't tested this machine hands-on, so this profile carries no rating — every fact below traces to the sources at the end, and the judgments are clearly ours. Full methodology on the Robot Tracker.
At a glance
- Status
- ShippingReal units delivered to paying customers
- Can you buy it?
- Yes
- Price
- Busts from $20,000; full-body robots from ~$95,000 (Aria ~$125,000+)
- Form factor
- Full-body conversational humanoid (modular)
- AI brain
- Proprietary on-device conversational AI (custom LLM integration available)
- Maker
- Realbotix (US)
- Backing
- Public (TSX-V: XBOT; also Frankfurt/OTC listed)
Realbotix is the one company on this list whose robots exist for the same reason this site does: companionship. The Las Vegas firm (publicly traded — TSX-V: XBOT) sells conversational humanoids — Aria, Melody, and David — with hyper-realistic faces driven by up to 43 motors, facial tracking, and swappable heads and characters. Busts start at $20,000; full-body robots run from about $95,000, with Aria configurations around $125,000–175,000. Its markets: trade shows, hotels, museums, healthcare — and, per its own materials, companionship.
The honest state of the art: at CES 2026 Realbotix demoed two robots holding an unscripted two-hour conversation on fully on-device AI — genuinely impressive. But Business Insider's July 2026 hands-on found the conversational illusion 'weakened once my interaction began': latency, missed emotional cues, a chatbot wearing a very expensive face. Realbotix itself calls the products early-stage. This is the frontier of embodied companionship — real, buyable, and not yet worth its price for most private buyers.
Where the money is actually going, though, is institutions — not companionship. In July 2026 Realbotix announced its first named school deployment: a purpose-built humanoid called Sally, part of an 'Optio' teaching-assistant product pairing the physical robot with an online avatar students reach around the clock. Sally is 5'8", stays seated, speaks 100+ languages, and per the district runs offline on its own brain with no facial recognition; it reaches about 500 Salamanca high-schoolers in September. Realbotix says it will have no access to student data. That's the company's claim, not a verified finding — but the direction is clear enough: trade shows, hotels, museums, and now classrooms are what Realbotix sells, and the companionship market is the story rather than the customer.
Photos from Realbotix
Images are the manufacturers' own press and product photography, shown here for identification and review, and credited to the rights holder.
Watch Aria
▶Realbotix Aria — humanoid companion robotWhat's real
- • Actually sells companion humanoids today — modular, customizable, with on-device conversational AI
- • The most expressive faces in the industry (up to 43 facial motors, facial tracking, swappable characters)
- • Public-company transparency (TSX-V: XBOT) in a field of private hype
- • Custom AI integration: buyers can run their own models in the robot
Know before you watch (or buy)
- • Independent hands-on reviews find conversation lags the hardware — closer to a chatbot with a face than a presence
- • $95k–175k for a full body is institutional money; the companionship use case at home is a very expensive experiment
- • Stationary-based: these robots converse and emote — they don't walk, fetch, or do chores
The evidence
First named institutional deployment: the Salamanca City Central School District (Cattaraugus County, NY) is putting a purpose-built Realbotix humanoid, 'Sally', into classrooms from fall 2026, reaching roughly 500 high-school students in September. Also selling busts and full-body units today (some models sold out per the company); CES 2026 demo of an unscripted two-hour robot-to-robot conversation on on-device AI.
Sources: heise online · Business Insider · Business Wire / Realbotix · New York Focus · Government Technology
What changed on Aria's own pages
Nothing yet. We re-crawl the maker's own price and product pages and record anything that moves — a price, a ship date, a caveat appearing or disappearing. We've been watching since 2026-07-12and this maker hasn't changed those pages since.
We report what changed and when, with the page it changed on. We don't speculate about why.
Bottom line
The clearest preview of where AI companions are headed once they get bodies — and a reminder of how far that still is. Businesses buying a conversational attraction get something real; individuals seeking a companion should probably keep it on a screen for a few more hardware generations.
FAQ
Can you buy a Realbotix robot like Aria?
Yes — Realbotix sells today: robotic busts from about $20,000 and full-body conversational humanoids from roughly $95,000 (Aria-class configurations have been quoted around $125,000–175,000 depending on generation and options), plus paid extras like custom faces, voices, and your own AI model integration.
Is Aria an AI girlfriend robot?
Realbotix — which grew out of RealDoll's robotics work — lists companionship among its markets alongside entertainment, customer service, and healthcare, and Aria is built for conversation, facial expression, and remembering people. What it isn't, per independent reviews, is anywhere near a human-feeling companion yet: expect a well-animated conversational interface, not a relationship.
Does Realbotix only make companion robots?
No, and increasingly not. Its named customers are institutional — trade shows, hotels, museums, healthcare — and in July 2026 it announced its first school deployment, a seated humanoid called Sally built for the Salamanca City Central School District in western New York under an 'Optio' teaching-assistant product. Companionship is the market Realbotix is best known for; institutional deployments are what it is visibly selling.