Gasgoo Munich- June 24, 2026. MWC Shanghai 2026 opens its doors at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. Inside, humanoid robots dance across booths, AI glasses dazzle, and crowds pack the 6G zone. Yet, one area remains perpetually ringed by visitors, who reach out to touch, whisper, and laugh—the AI pet showcase.
This fervor extends far beyond the exhibition floor. A search for "AI pets" on e-commerce platforms reveals everything from plush keychains costing a few hundred yuan to desktop robots priced in the thousands. Capital is flooding in, tech giants are crossing over, and a brand-new consumer sector has taken shape.
Why AI Pets Became the Show's Top Draw
At CES in January 2025, TCL unveiled AI Me, the world's first modular AI companion robot, racking up over 15,000 pre-orders on launch day. Back then, many dismissed it as a mere "electronic toy." But a year later, at CES 2026, 58 companies arrived with their own AI toys and companion robots. Incomplete counts show that Chinese firms alone accounted for more than 30 of them.
By MWC Barcelona in March 2026, the momentum had only grown. ZTE officially launched iMoochi, an AI pet positioned as an "emotional companion with deep interactive feedback." It eschews stiff mechanical dialogue for multi-sensory feedback via touch. Over time, it develops unique "personalities" and "emotions." The product targets urban singles living alone and pet lovers who, for now, cannot keep real animals.
Three months later at MWC Shanghai, AI pets had become a fixture of the show. ZTE showcased a full matrix of AI terminals with iMoochi at the center; China Mobile unveiled its AI emotional companion pet, AI clubie, demonstrating AI applications across digital life, embodied intelligence, and home agents; and Tianyi Digital Life arrived with an AI healthcare companion robot and an AI sports companion dog. From desktop bots to AI plush pets and pocket-sized companions, the forms varied wildly—a hundred flowers blooming.
"AI clubie connects to eight major AI models for autonomous conversation. It also carries its own China Mobile 4G signal, serving both its own connectivity needs and functioning as a mobile hotspot," an on-site engineer from China Mobile told Gasgoo.
One telling sign is that AI pets are shifting from "startup experiments" to "standard equipment for big tech."
Huawei released "Smart Hanhan," developed with Luobo Intelligence, selling out in 10 seconds; ZTE carved out a new AI terminal category with iMoochi; and carriers like China Mobile and China Telecom are throwing their hats in the ring.
When communication giants and consumer electronics heavyweights collectively bet on a niche segment, it is no longer a "geek toy" for the few—it is an industrial wave already in motion.
Data Behind the "Emotional Economy" Surge
The hype around AI pets is backed by hard numbers.
Look at the global market first. Research by QYResearch shows sales in the global AI bionic pet market hit $247 million in 2025. Meanwhile, LP Information data projects the global AI emotional companion pet market will grow from $394 million in 2025 to $892 million by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11.7%.
The data from China is even more striking. Figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show the country's AI toy market reached 24.6 billion yuan in 2024 and is expected to climb to 29 billion yuan in 2025—growing twice as fast as traditional toys. Several research firms predict that by 2030, China's AI toy market will exceed 100 billion yuan. The AI emotional companion pet market, meanwhile, is projected to reach $891 million by 2032, with a CAGR of 11.3%.
Specific product sales are just as impressive. Luobo Intelligence’s Fuzozo launched in June 2025 and racked up over 120,000 sales within the year, later winning the "AI Companion Robot" category at Tmall’s 618 shopping festival in 2026. Its subsequent collaboration with Huawei, "Smart Hanhan," quickly sold over 6,500 units through official channels and was so scarce on resale platforms that it commanded a 75% premium. Mengyou Intelligence’s Ropet has shipped nearly 20,000 units since global deliveries began in September 2025, with roughly 70% going overseas and a global return rate of less than 4%.
The investment side is just as heated. Data from IT Juzi shows there were 19 financing events in China's AI toy sector in 2025—well above the 14 in 2024 and just three in 2023. Just two months ago, Mengyou Intelligence’s Ropet closed a Series A round, with cumulative funding exceeding $10 million.
From startups to tech giants, from traditional toy makers to internet behemoths, more players are flooding into this space. JD.com held an AI toy conference as early as July 2025, attracting over 600 manufacturers. The collective entry of internet giants, top consumer electronics firms, and IP heavyweights has created a multi-dimensional competitive landscape.
Behind these numbers lies a market expanding at breakneck speed. But figures can only explain *how hot* it is, not *why*. The answer likely lies in the emotional needs of people today.
Why AI Pets Strike a Chord
The explosion of AI pets is, at its core, a precise capture of "emotional value."
In contemporary society, the number of people living alone is rising fast. Urban young people face widespread struggles: high work pressure, narrow social circles, and a lack of emotional companionship. Keep a real pet? That requires time, energy, and money—not to mention dealing with shedding, illness, and the hassle of moving. AI pets offer a "perfect substitute"—no feeding, no cleaning, no sickness, no shedding. Yet, they provide a sense of companionship and emotional response.
Technology has breathed "life" into these "electronic partners." The core shift in this wave of AI pets is this: moving from "passive response" to "continuous interaction," and from a "set of functions" to "relationship building." Early smart pets were stuck in mechanical interactions with preset actions and fixed phrases. Today’s AI pets, powered by large language models, multimodal perception, and emotional computing, deliver an interaction experience that feels truly alive.
Take Joobie, for example. Inside, it integrates multi-point touch, pressure, balance, and sound sensors to perceive hugs, walking, and shaking. It doesn't "solve problems"; it offers "emotional feedback." More importantly, Joobie introduces a "growth-oriented companionship" design logic—by recording how a user interacts over a seven-day cycle, it gradually forms distinct behavioral patterns. In the hands of different users, Joobie develops different emotional expressions and behavioral preferences.
ZTE’s iMoochi works on the same principle—it senses the user’s mood through touch and sound, responding with eye contact and a unique "iMoochi language." Over time, it reveals its own "personality" and "emotions." Huawei’s "Smart Hanhan" taps into the "Xiaoyi" large model for human-like voice conversations. These products are no longer cold "devices"; they are "partners" with "personality" that "grow."
A shift in consumption habits is equally crucial. Amid the "self-pleasing economy," young people are willing to pay for emotional value. AI pets sit precisely at the intersection of the "pet economy" and the "loneliness economy." "AI pets are the 'minimum viable product' combining large models, sensors, and low-power chips with consumer hardware," an industry insider told Gasgoo at MWC2026. Unlike production or service robots, AI pets demand less precision and reliability, making them a natural fit for the long-term trends of emotional consumption and the companion economy.
Yet beneath the hype, concerns cannot be ignored.
Bubbles, "IQ Tax," and Data Privacy Risks
The rapid surge of any emerging sector brings controversy and challenges. AI pets are no exception.
The first controversy: Are they "emotional companions" or just "e-waste"? Many users on social media report that AI pet interactions still feel rudimentary, and once the novelty fades, they easily become desk ornaments gathering dust. "It’s still a long way from real companionship," one user noted. Industry analysts point out that AI toys currently face common challenges on both the software and hardware sides. When users spend hundreds or thousands of yuan on a "talking plush toy" only to find repetitive dialogue logic and stiff emotional responses, disappointment is almost inevitable.
The second controversy: Doubts about an "IQ tax" never cease. From AI pet translators to AI emotion-monitoring collars, many "black tech" features are hard to verify scientifically. One report notes that some products use "exaggerated" or "vague" marketing for core functions, with actual performance and stability generally falling short of claims. Take "pet translation" as an example: its touted high accuracy lacks independent verification, and many users feel the actual experience falls far short of the marketing.
The third controversy, and the most severe: data privacy risks. The "intelligence" of AI pets relies on data collection—robot dogs with cameras and smart dolls that record conversations are, often unwittingly, harvesting sensitive user data like voice, images, and even home addresses. Some products are equipped with high-sensitivity microphones and wide-angle cameras, giving them data-collection capabilities on par with security devices, yet they often lack effective encryption for storage and transmission. Parents worry: "What if the camera captures scenes of changing clothes or bathing, and that data gets leaked?" Zhang Yunquan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, has publicly stated: "No technology application should cross the safety bottom line. When 'electronic friends' penetrate deeply into daily life, the data risks behind them may be more hidden than we imagine."
There is also concern over the substitution effect of AI pets on real social interaction. Experts have previously pointed out that over-reliance on AI toys may impair children's ability to handle real-world social situations. When a person shifts the object of emotional confidants from "humans" to "machines," is that substitution healthy? And as "electronic friends" become increasingly anthropomorphic, where do we draw the boundary between human and machine?
These controversies do not negate the value of AI pets, but they serve as a reminder to the industry: even as it sprints forward, it must answer some fundamental questions.
Conclusion
From the booths at MWC2026 to the shelves of e-commerce platforms, AI pets are entering the public eye at unprecedented speed. Capital is flowing in, giants are laying out their strategies, and products are iterating rapidly. Behind this lies the inevitability of technological progress, and a reflection of contemporary emotional needs.
But the true maturity of an industry is never just about scale expansion. AI pets need to answer not just "how to sell more," but "how to accompany longer"—how do we prevent the novelty from fading? How do we turn an "electronic partner" into a true "emotional partner"? And how do we safeguard the bottom line of data security while providing companionship?
These questions are perhaps more worth pursuing than "how hot are AI pets." After all, a sector that only burns bright for a moment cannot sustain an industry. Only a sector that can truly "accompany" its users earns the right to talk about the future.
