After a year of wild running, AI toys have found their own way.

There are significant non - consensuses in the AI toy industry in terms of technological routes, business models, and user groups, providing broader innovation space for different companies.

A year ago, AI toys were suspected of being just a concept hype, and mass - production data was needed to prove the real existence of this demand. After a year of development, this market has expanded rapidly, with more diverse product paths, larger - scale financing, and more consumers willing to pay for them.

“When we first launched the product a year ago, we were extremely nervous,” Li Yong, the CEO of Haivivi, told us. At that time, there were no mature cases for reference, and we didn't know if it would sell well. The team just intuitively thought that combining the large - model dialogue ability with plush toys would create a chemical reaction.

The first - generation product, BubblePal, was thus born, and its sales volume increased for two consecutive months after its launch. After the Spring Festival this year, the launch of DeepSeek completed the popularization of AI among the general public, further stimulating the monthly sales growth of BubblePal, which reached two or three times that of the previous months.

Li Yong began to firmly believe that “in the future AGI era, all toys should have AI capabilities.” According to the “White Paper on the Consumption Trends of the AI Toy Industry,” the global market size of AI toys is expected to exceed 100 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 50%. In particular, the CAGR of the Chinese market is even over 70%.

More players are starting to enter the same track as Haivivi, including entrepreneurs, merchants in Huaqiangbei, IP holders, and even game companies and Internet companies.

Among them, Ropet from Mengyou Intelligence became popular at CES 2025, demonstrating another possibility. Although it can't speak, Ropet is defined as an AI pet. It can interact with people like a kitten or puppy, act cute and coquettishly, and gain more realistic growth through AI capabilities and data accumulation. Beipei Technology, which received investment from Shunwei Capital, launched the AI educational companion toy, Kedou Peipei, at the end of April this year. It not only wants to chat with children but also aims to become an AI partner accompanying children's growth.

These products can be called AI toys or companion - type AI hardware. They share a common basic setting - all strive to use AI technology to make toys, pets, and robots more like living beings and capable of more natural interactions with people. The difference lies in that each team will look for different development paths, target different scenarios and user groups to meet differentiated needs and form different business models.

These differentiated explorations have not only upgraded the interactive experience of traditional toys through AI but also extended and satisfied the functional and emotional values, enabling the entry into different vertical fields from the toy sector.

Such AI toys are like a preview of the robot era, helping people practice how to coexist with AI in reality through an entry - level product.

AI Toys: From Concept to Market

As one of the earliest companies in China to explore the AI toy track, Haivivi launched its first - generation product, BubblePal, in July 2024, priced at 399 yuan. This bubble - shaped external AI pendant, empowered by AIGC technology, brought the children's bedside doll friends to life, enabling them to “speak.” Thus, it opened up a new category of AI toys.

Currently, BubblePal has sold over 200,000 units, helping Haivivi gain recognition from the capital market. On August 25, Haivivi announced the completion of a new round of 200 million yuan in financing led by funds under CICC Capital, Sequoia China Seed Fund, Huashan Capital, and Joy Capital, with participation from CMBC International and Brizan Ventures.

“I think the technology has become more mature this year, and the industry has objectively become popular. More players have entered, and we have also caught the attention of capital. With sufficient cash flow, we can do some things we originally wanted to do,” Li Yong said.

While announcing the financing, Haivivi officially launched its second - generation AI toy product, the CocoMate series. The first product is an AI plush toy co - branded with Ultraman, priced at 799 yuan. The core of the AI hardware is embedded in it and can be disassembled. In the next few months, Haivivi plans to release more than a dozen products one after another to improve its product matrix at a faster pace.

Haivivi's second - generation AI toy product - the CocoMate series, the co - branded product with Ultraman

In the past year, after the first - generation products of Beipei Technology, Mengyou Intelligence, and Luobo Intelligence were launched, they all achieved sales growth exceeding the teams' expectations. A staff member of Luobo Technology told us at the booth of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference at the end of July that their plush bag - hanging AI toy, Fuzozo, went on sale in June, priced at 399 yuan. It sold 1,000 units in one minute after its launch, and the latest batch of 30,000 products was already sold out. “If you place an order now, you won't get it until August,” he said.

Beipei Technology's Kedou Peipei currently has two models, the Curious Bear and the Friendly Rabbit. On the basis of the plush doll's body, it is equipped with a glasses - shaped eye - protecting screen that “can blink and interact,” which caters to children's natural preference for warm tactile sensations and concrete things. Through the design of hands - free dialogue, it solves the interaction pain points when lulling young children to sleep.

The Curious Bear and the Friendly Rabbit are both priced at 399 yuan. They ranked among the top 3 AI toys on Tmall two weeks after their launch. “This speed exceeded our expectations, and our conversion rate is the highest in the entire category, indicating that the product form has been verified,” said Huang Yingning, the founder of Beipei Technology. On this basis, Beipei Technology wants to create a new hardware with memory and soul for the new generation of children to accompany them as they grow up.

Targeting young female users, Ropet's design focuses on “spiritual interaction” and “ultimate simplification.” It presents a round and fluffy shape, equipped with a camera, a rotatable base, and a pair of big screen eyes. It doesn't have a dialogue function but provides “weak companionship” and emotional value through onomatopoeia and emojis on the screen eyes, stripping away the functional labels of traditional technology products.

Currently, Ropet is mainly sold in the markets of Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, priced at 299 US dollars. It is expected to deliver 30,000 - 40,000 products this year and plans to be officially launched in the Chinese mainland next year. In the crowdfunding campaign on the overseas crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, 70% of the participants were female users who used the platform for the first time - this forms a sharp contrast with the platform's attribute of serving male geeks, confirming Ropet's precise positioning in the female AI toy market and the emotional companionship track.

In terms of the user group, the market for AI toys is not limited to first - and second - tier cities. It also shows certain demand potential in lower - tier markets. Beipei Technology's sales data shows that the proportion of county - level orders has been continuously increasing. Some parents from lower - tier cities regard such products as an important tool to compensate for the lack of parent - child companionship. Huang Yingning believes that “this track is wide enough, long enough, and full of potential, giving us enough time to strive for success.”

The market demand for AI toys has been verified by more products, boosting the confidence of the capital market in investing in the AI toy track. In addition to Haivivi, Beipei Technology completed 3 rounds of financing within a year, with a cumulative amount of nearly 10 million US dollars. Luobo Intelligence also announced that it had received tens of millions of yuan in angel - round financing. Roughly calculated, there have been more than 20 investment and financing events in the domestic AI toy field in the past year.

Creating Silicon - Based Life Forms

Compared with the previous generation of AI, large models have long - term memory and content - generation capabilities. This makes people no longer satisfied with developing intelligent tools but instead try to create silicon - based companions with a sense of life and a physical form. Embodied intelligence is the ultimate pursuit of silicon - based companions, and AI toys are silicon - based companions that can enter the market more quickly. Having the ability to build vivid silicon - based life forms is the entry ticket to the AI toy track.

Beipei Technology, Mengyou Intelligence, and Haivivi unanimously believe that in this track, technology can only form a barrier in the short term, and pure tool - type products are more likely to get caught in industry involution. Creating vivid silicon - based life forms is a comprehensive test of technological capabilities, scenario insights, and user positioning. Once achieved, it can form a closer binding relationship with users and establish a solid brand image.

Huang Yingning said that she has always had a seed of creating a ToC application in her heart. Under the technological transformation, she realized that a new generation of ToC applications might emerge, which can not only provide tool value but also bring a stronger sense of companionship.

Kedou Peipei is an AI partner for children born under this concept. The Curious Bear and the Friendly Rabbit will have different personalities. Different toy combinations are like bringing different - personality friends to children, influencing them from different personality dimensions.

Kedou Peipei AI toys, the Friendly Rabbit and the Curious Bear

Huang Yingning also hopes that the interaction between AI toys and users can be similar to the interaction between people in reality. “If we have a personal secretary, he might do things for us before we even realize it. If you are on a diet recently, he won't order braised pork with preserved vegetables for your lunch. This is a very proactive interaction,” Huang Yingning explained.

Under this thinking, the core value of Kedou Peipei lies in the behind - the - scenes software system and data accumulation. Through this, it can share a unique growth memory with children and conduct more proactive communication with them based on this.

One question that Haivivi wants to answer this year is how to make AI toys more lifelike after the improvement of large - model technology. CocoMate is more like a brain placed inside a plush toy. In the future, Haivivi will continuously iterate this brain until it has the four core characteristics of a living being - “autonomy, sociability, value alignment, and finiteness.”

Li Yong believes that currently, the in - depth thinking ability of large models can basically meet the independent thinking needs of AI toys. The continuous evolution of the model and the long - term accumulation of product - side data will make AI toys approach a state of autonomous learning. There might be a unique Agent behind each AI toy, which can think and execute autonomously.

On this basis, toys can be interconnected to achieve data sharing. In Li Yong's vision, AI toys can actively communicate with each other. Haivivi plans to build “Haivivi and Her Friends,” enabling all IP toys equipped with its software algorithms to achieve cross - brand social interaction. For example, Disney characters can “talk” to Ultraman.

This design makes toys the intermediary of human - to - human social interaction. Even, AI toys and users will jointly form a new social circle, where toys can communicate freely with each other and with users. This reminds people of the society where humans and robots coexist as shown in science - fiction movies.

Then comes the realization of value alignment. If people want to maintain a long - term friendship, they need to gradually form a consensus or align their values in the process of getting along. AI will also continuously adjust in the interaction with users to find the common ground. This is a different expression of the same demand as Kedou Peipei's desire to share a unique memory with users.

Ultimately, AI toys should have their own memory and soul. So even if two people have Ultraman toys, after three years, each person's Ultraman will be different.

Mengyou Intelligence interprets “value alignment” as a cultivation model from the perspective of the interaction between pets and humans. “In fact, people prefer things that are similar to themselves rather than complementary. So Ropet will complete its character shaping as it gets along with users. Initially, there might be a tentative period like when a dog gets along with a human, and then it will continuously adjust its behavior according to the owner's feedback,” said Zhou Yushu, a partner at Zhenzhi Venture Capital and a co - founder of Mengyou Intelligence.

Ropet, a product under Mengyou Technology

The AI pets of Mengyou Intelligence can share a unified “brain,” and users can achieve data sharing through one account without losing their preference settings.

Finally, AI toys need to show finiteness, which is also the core difference between them and all - knowing and all - powerful general AI assistants. In Li Yong's view, “forgetting” is an important manifestation of finiteness. Intelligent agents need to selectively store memories for AI toys according to parameters such as time, mention frequency, and emotional intensity, “just like active and passive forgetting in humans.”

Ropet also emphasizes the biological characteristics of the product, and its greatest finiteness comes from deliberately abandoning the dialogue function. Its product will build a sense of life based on the still - developing multimodal interaction: visually, it can perceive the environment through the camera; aurally, the microphone captures the user's voice and emits onomatopoeic tones; in terms of movement, it supports basic feedback such as turning the head and blinking; when the user touches it actively, Ropet will also react in real - time.

Zhou Yushu believes that in the foreseeable future when silicon - based creatures become smarter, humans will increasingly feel a lack of a sense of value. Therefore, the core of Ropet is not to serve people but to let people take care of the robot pet and obtain emotional satisfaction in the process of cultivation. Following this logic, Ropet has determined that its target user group is neither children nor the elderly but young women with a stronger willingness to keep pets.

Besides the software level, AI toys also pursue the realization of a sense of life at the hardware level. One obvious point is that many AI toys choose a plush appearance. This warmer - looking material has a stronger sense of biology, which not only meets the emotional needs of children but also touches the hearts of adults. Many products targeting specific user groups have made differentiated designs on this basis.

For example, Ropet, with a plush ball as its basic shape, allows users to buy plush shells to replace, making the product more personalized. Fuzozo, also targeting Generation Z women, also has a plush appearance and can be carried as a bag hanging, fitting the current popular trend.

Each AI Toy Should Blaze Its Own Trail

Behind the explosive growth of the AI toy industry lies the non - convergent development paths. Pursuing a sense of life is the underlying tone of the entire industry. On this basis, different companies have derived completely different development ideas based on their different understandings of technology, users, and the market.

Currently, the industry has differentiated into three major directions: AI pets, AI toys, and AI robots. Both Beipei Technology and Haivivi belong to the direction of AI toys, but their development paths are also quite different. Mengyou Intelligence is in the direction of AI pets, with a very different idea from the previous two.

Starting from toys, Beipei Technology pays more attention to enabling AI to play an enlightening and guiding role in children's growth. It productizes the accumulation of child