Beijing expands robots and AI services into daily public life

In short: Beijing is increasingly putting robots and AI-powered services into real public places, from shops and streets to healthcare and elderly care.

What's going on

Beijing is making artificial intelligence a visible part of daily life in some districts. Residents may see robot convenience store clerks, AI-assisted doctors, and self-driving pickup vehicles. There are also robots serving food or doing playful tasks in public areas.

A key shift is that the city is moving beyond screen-based chatbots and into what officials call “embodied AI,” meaning AI in a physical body, like a robot that can move and interact (think of it like software that can walk around). Beijing has a three-year plan to build an embodied AI industry ecosystem by 2027. The city’s broader AI rollout also includes pilot programs for autonomous vehicle pickups, unmanned patrol cars, and more AI use in healthcare, retail, and public services.

Examples show how this can feel helpful, silly, or both. In Beijing E-Town, robots are used as basketball teammates, household helpers, and retail assistants. A smart elderly-care center uses more than 40 robots for cooking, meal delivery, and daily care support. In the Longfusi area, an AI-powered cart navigated through crowds on its own, and on Qianmen pedestrian street, a humanoid robot has run an automated retail pod that takes spoken orders, handles payment, and greets visitors in the local Beijing dialect.

What to watch

Beijing says its AI sector is already large, with thousands of AI companies and hundreds of registered large language models (AI systems trained on huge amounts of text, like a very advanced autocomplete). Watch whether these robots become truly reliable everyday helpers, or stay mostly as demos and tourist-friendly attractions.

Source: NYTimes