The individual who introduced a Roomba to every household aims to substitute your dog with a stuffed robotic companion.

      TL;DR: Colin Angle, the creator of Roomba, has introduced the Familiar, an AI pet robot featuring touch-sensitive fur that adjusts to your daily routines.

      Colin Angle, a robotics engineer and co-founder of iRobot, who dedicated 25 years to making the Roomba the leading household robot worldwide, has presented a prototype of his latest innovation: a four-legged, plush-covered AI companion created to follow you around your home, adapt to your daily habits, and evoke emotions when it welcomes you at the door.

      Known as the Familiar, this project is developed by Familiar Machines & Magic, a startup that operated quietly in Woburn, Massachusetts before Angle showcased a working prototype at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference in New York on May 4. The robot is about the size of a bulldog, boasting doe-like eyes, bear cub ears and paws, and touch-sensitive synthetic fur. It produces emotive sounds similar to animals but does not speak. It includes audio input to listen and learn from your speech, and its AI system, which utilizes advancements in generative AI, gradually modifies its behavior as it becomes acquainted with those around it.

      “We opted for a design that isn’t a human, dog, or cat, as we wanted to move away from those existing biases,” Angle explained to the Associated Press. “The goal is to create something more than a simple toy; it is about having a companion you want to hug and pet. When it is happy, you feel joyful too.”

      The notion of an artificial pet isn’t entirely new. In the late 1990s, Sony released its plastic robotic dog, Aibo, and rebooted it in 2018. Cynthia Breazeal, an MIT researcher who is now an advisor to Angle at Familiar Machines, created the robot head Kismet and subsequently the tabletop speaker robot Jibo, both early attempts to give machines social expressions. Jibo was released, garnered a niche audience, and then ceased operations. The history of social robots is filled with products that captivated early users but failed to achieve long-term success.

      Angle believes the Familiar stands out because the technology has finally evolved to match the vision. “I couldn’t have created this just six months ago,” he said. The generative AI systems that fuel ChatGPT and similar tools provide the Familiar with the ability for contextual learning and adaptive behavior that previous companion robots lacked. The device is agile enough to follow you into the kitchen, sizeable enough for physical interaction, and, according to Angle, can develop a personality shaped by its owner's actions over time.

      The timing of this venture is closely linked to the history of iRobot. Angle co-founded the firm in 1990 with colleagues from MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. Over the next 30 years, iRobot sold over 50 million Roomba robots, becoming the first and only home robot for many consumers. In 2022, Amazon announced a $1.7 billion plan to acquire iRobot, but after 18 months of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe, Amazon abandoned the deal in January 2024, citing significant regulatory hurdles. Subsequently, Amazon shifted its focus to acquiring smaller robotics startups, including Fauna Robotics and Rivr, a stair-climbing delivery robot based in Zurich. Without the acquisition prospect and struggling against cheaper Chinese competitors, iRobot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2025, with its assets sold to a Chinese company. Angle resigned as CEO and chairman in 2024 and soon founded Familiar Machines.

      Angle has called the bankruptcy of iRobot "preventable" and criticized the regulatory framework, stating that the FTC viewed blocked deals "like trophies." This experience seems to have influenced his new endeavor. While iRobot operated as a hardware manufacturing company that had to compete on price, Familiar Machines aims to focus on a product whose value is determined by its AI capabilities rather than its material costs. A plush robot that learns and adapts is more challenging to replicate than a vacuum cleaner.

      One of the target consumers is elderly individuals who are past the prime age for pet ownership. “This isn’t because people stop enjoying pets, but rather the fear and responsibility associated with caring for them deter many from getting new pets as they age,” Angle remarked. The market for companion robots focused on elder care is expected to expand from $480 million in 2025 to over $1.2 billion by 2035, driven by aging populations in regions like Japan, Europe, and North America.

      Angle has assembled an advisory board consisting of notable experts in robotics research, including Marc Raibert, the founder of Boston Dynamics, as well as Breazeal. Many of the advisors collaborated at MIT and harbor skepticism towards the current trend in humanoid robots, which they regard as machines capable of impressive movement but lacking in practical utility. The humanoid robotics market is attracting substantial investment, with companies like Tesla, 1X, Apptronik, and Meta racing