First lady Melania Trump walked alongside a handsome, black-and-white faceless figure Wednesday at her White House education briefing. Despite its appearance, it was not an earthly creature. It was a humanoid AI robot, known as Figure 03.
In videos from the conference, the robot can be seen walking around the first lady, welcoming everyone in the room in several different languages and waving her hand.
“Figure 03, thank you for joining me,” said the First Lady. “It’s fair to say that you are my first American-made guest at the White House.”
Videos of the first lady walking alongside the robot quickly went viral and garnered hundreds of thousands of views and curious comments from social media users, but little was said about who made the robot and what it was used for.
The robot was created by AI robotics company Figure, one of the leading companies in the AI subindustry racing to create lifelike robots. Six months ago, the company posted on LinkedIn that it had passed $1 billion in funding, including investments from NVIDIA and LG Technology Ventures. CEO and founder Brett Adcock celebrated in a Wednesday X post that the robot made “history as the first humanoid robot in the White House.”
At 5’8,” about 135lb, the robot is touted by the company as an autonomous tool for delegating household chores. It’s covered in mesh fabric and includes hand-held cameras and touch sensors to help operators spot its targets. In promotional videos, it can be seen loading the dishwasher, doing laundry, picking up play clothes and toys.
At the conference, which focused on AI and education, the first lady spoke to 45 women leaders about the possible benefits of AI technology in the lives of young people, including AI humanoid teachers.
“In the near future, artificial intelligence will move from our cell phones to humanoids that deliver help,” he said. “Think of a philanthropic teacher named ‘Plato.’ Access to the classics is now instant – literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics and history – all human knowledge is available in the comfort of your own home.”
The Figure 03 robot, currently not marketed for educational purposes or available for direct-to-consumer purchase, operates on an AI model of language-perception action. VLA models process real-time data through visual sensors, such as cameras, and then use AI reasoning to solve, predict and complete tasks. Figure 03 uses a model from the VLA AI company called Helix. The model allows the robot to respond to verbal commands.
AI Image does not appear to have active agreements with the federal government. Neither the White House nor Figure immediately responded for comment.
But humanoid AI robots have reportedly caught the attention of the Trump Administration, which has explored the use of similar robots as potential assets for the US Military.
This does not seem to be the focus of Figure 03. Earlier robots built by Figure, such as Figure 02, focused more on manual tasks. Adcock has said that the company hopes that robots can serve as a way to deal with the labor shortage in the US.
“Today, compensation for manual labor is what drives the prices of goods and services,” Adcock wrote on the company’s website, “as these robots ‘join the workforce,’ everywhere from factories to farms, labor costs will drop to equal the cost of hiring a robot, facilitating long-term, comprehensive, and human cost reductions over time. Other robots – lower prices even more.”
—Some react negatively to the appearance of the robot. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s media account on X posted a response to a clip of the first lady sharing her thoughts on the power of AI humanoid teachers, writing, “…how no.” The media account also shared an edited photo of Trump standing next to the robot, altered to look like President Donald Trump.
