Is it blind following or a choice made after careful consideration?
Cover image generated by AI
Produced by｜Bai Jing Chuhai AI TeamAuthor｜LainyaEditor｜Yin Guanjiao
In June of this year, the highly popular AI toy “Fuzozo” officially launched on JD.com. This plush accessory has attracted many consumers, and currently, Fuzozo ranks second on JD’s AI toy sales chart, with monthly sales exceeding 20,000 units according to data from the business observation media “Baobian”.
In September, an AI companion robot in the shape of an accessory, Eiliko, completed its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, garnering support from approximately 4,700 backers and raising around $600,000.
In October, LIVING.AI, a hardware brand focused on the AI companion field, suddenly updated its product promotional images on its official website, introducing a new product that also resembles an accessory.
From left to right: Fuzozo, Eiliko, and LIVING.AI
New product preview image｜Image source JD.com, Kickstarter, LIVING.AI
In the months following Fuzozo’s rise to fame, several AI toy brands have launched new products, all choosing the accessory form. It is not uncommon for a particular market segment to follow trends, but with such impressive results, we can’t help but wonder why the “accessory” shape? Is this a case of convergence among competitors or a choice made after careful consideration?
Similar path choices? From desktop to personal use
According to Qichacha, the three AI companion accessory products mentioned above come from Shanghai Robopoet, Shenzhen Energize Lab, and Shenzhen LIVING.AI. Coincidentally, all three companies initially chose to launch desktop robots as their first products.
. Robopoet-Fuzozo：
Robopoet was established in 2024, and its first product, Sunday, is officially positioned as an “AI trendy toy”. The product is advertised as supporting three-in-one scenarios for desktop, ground, and wearable use. Sunday stands about 15cm tall and supports features such as voice chat, facial recognition, long-term memory, and personality development. From the official introduction, compared to its later star product Fuzozo, Sunday lacks the social feature of “tap to add friends” and has significant differences in appearance, but almost all other settings have been continued in Fuzozo.
Robopoet’s first product prototype, codenamed “Sunday” (left),
not yet officially sold, currently displayed on the official website as a life assistant
Robohelper; later launched Fuzozo (right, initially debutedunder the name “Fuzzoo”)｜Image source Robopoet WeChat Official Account
. Energize Lab-Eiliko：
Energize Lab was established in 2019, and before Eiliko launched on Kickstarter, it had another desktop companion robot, Eilik (the new product name only added an “o” at the end), which raised about $770,000 in 2021. Eilik is equipped with sensors that can recognize user contact actions and provide emotional feedback through facial expressions on a display screen, supporting conversation, timing, and interactive games, with multiple devices able to interact.
This year, Eiliko launched, and at first glance, it appears to be a smaller version of Eilik, with a height reduction of 5cm. Based on the accessory form, it adds a modular design for outfit changes. In terms of functionality, it incorporates AI technology support into the conversation feature and enhances social attributes, where different Eiliko units increase intimacy with more encounters.
From left to right: Eiliko and Eilik comparison,
Eilik, Eiliko. Eiliko also adopts a “once in a lifetime” pairing mechanism, which, once paired, cannot be unbound. Its head can be detached from the body for different combinations.｜Image source Kickstarter
. LIVING.AI-HICOCO：
LIVING.AI was established in 2020, and its first product EMO is also a desktop robot that supports conversation, photo assistance, and schedule management. It is equipped with multiple sensors and can express emotions through a facial display and multi-axis joints in response to user voice commands and touch. As usage time accumulates, EMO’s understanding of user commands also improves.
Later, AIBI was launched, positioned as a pocket robot (which can also be worn with a strap), supporting facial recognition, photography, voice Q&A, and schedule management functions. At this stage, LIVING.AI has clearly been reducing the size of its robots, enhancing their portability. The AI accessory, known to many as fuzzoo, is actually more closely related to LIVING.AI’s pocket robot, which was exploring portable forms earlier.
Regarding the recent sudden update of the homepage product image by LIVING.AI, the company indicated during the promotional activities that the new product HICOCO might be a “surprising addition to EMO and AIBI”. Following the trend of previous products shrinking from desktop to pocket size, and based on the preview images released, HICOCO is likely to also take on an accessory form.
On the left are EMO and AIBI, and below is the updated product image on the homepage.｜Image source LIVING.AI
As we observe the unified shift of AI toy manufacturers towards the “accessory” form, the trendy toy attributes are also evident.
Fuzozo and HICOCO have chosen appealing and attractive plush materials, while Robopet’s “Fuzo” name change coincidentally occurred within two months after Labubu’s explosive popularity; Eiliko supports outfit changes and adopts the typical “blind box” sales model found in trendy toys.
It must be said that manufacturers may be “grasping” the psychology of young players, but the explosive popularity of Pop Mart has indeed made entrepreneurs realize the value of emotional engagement.
In terms of audience, Robopoet’s founder Sun Zhaozhi has explicitly stated that Fuzozo’s target audience is young women; Eiliko’s promotional images feature numerous clothing and bag matching elements, clearly targeting young users and couples as core audiences. The age range for LIVING.AI’s EMO and AIBI is broader, while the audience for HICOCO remains to be observed after its official release.
Smaller AI companions: A social shift after being “seen”
From the iterative process of the aforementioned manufacturers, we can see that the transition from early “desktop pets” to recent “AI accessories” has not changed the basic functional utility, and there is almost no difference from Eilik, which was already crowdfunding in 2021. The improvements are largely due to advancements in AI technology (such as enhanced model capabilities and improved long-term memory), upgrading the experience.
In other words, although AI toys have been pushed to the forefront in 2025, they are not fundamentally different from four years ago. The wave of returns faced by many AI toy sales earlier this year also indicates that the experience may not yet meet user expectations.
However, the success of Fuzozo after its launch and the collective following of several manufacturers align with the trends we have observed in the AI companion software sector, as everyone is trying to break out of a “misconception” about using AI to accompany humans.
The core change in this wave, the “accessory” form, not only provides young people with a reason to like it through trendy attributes but also allows this liking to be shared and seen, increasing the probability of two AI accessory toys encountering each other, transforming the toy’s value from mere AI companionship to AI companionship that facilitates social interactions between people.
On social media platforms, many consumers who purchased Fuzozo are looking for “parents” to make friends or share their experiences of meeting offline through Fuzozo. Friends of the author who have purchased Fuzozo express that, for them, the companionship attribute of Fuzozo currently outweighs its social attributes. The likelihood of using social features also relates to the user’s personality, as more introverted friends indicate that they would not proactively seek out “like-minded” individuals in real life, but if someone asks, they would be willing to try the tap-to-friend feature.
Zhu Xiaohu has posted a social media friendship post featuring Fuzozo (left); a user has purchased both Fuzozo and AIBI (in the blue box)｜Image source Xiaohongshu
On Kickstarter, overseas users also express high expectations for social features. Referring to Energize Lab’s two products, many users left comments during Eilik’s crowdfunding phase requesting the addition of social interaction features; when Eiliko was launched, users had high expectations for its intimate social attributes.
At the same time, from Eilik to Eiliko, Energize Lab’s settings have undergone subtle changes. Originally, two Eilik units could interact with each other, with the user being the same person; whereas in Eiliko, both the social features, primarily based on “intimacy”, and the “once in a lifetime” pairing mechanism typically involve different users.
Comments section for Eilik and Eiliko｜Image source Kickstarter
Energize Lab has shared that after the release of Eilik, the team discovered that the usage of Eilik as a desktop robot extended far beyond the desktop, with many users taking Eilik to cafes, beaches, and even hanging it on their travel bags while traveling the world.
The background of Eiliko’s birth｜Image source Kickstarter
Additionally, the collective shift of AI toys towards the “accessory” form seems to facilitate industry advancement and market validation.
Robopoet’s Sunday is not yet officially sold, while Fuzozo is priced at 399 yuan (currently around 300 yuan after discounts for “Double Eleven”), which is considered a highly acceptable price among AI toys. Energize Lab’s Eilik was initially priced at $100 (approximately 710 yuan) during its early bird phase in 2021, while this year, the early bird price for Eiliko was directly halved to $50 (approximately 355 yuan). Although LIVING.AI’s HICOCO has not yet been officially released, the prices for EMO starting at $279 (approximately 2000 yuan) and AIBI at $249 (approximately 1800 yuan) clearly indicate a downward trend in product pricing.
Final Thoughts
According to business observation media “Baobian”, Vivian, an AI investment expert with a background in NLP (Natural Language Processing) and experience at investment firms such as Jingwei and Guangyuan Capital, emphasized that AI companionship is not a single product but should be designed around the lifestyle of target users. Many teams are currently fixated on the term “companionship” without understanding “who needs companionship”, “what kind of companionship”, and “in what scenarios companionship is needed”. This has become a core reason for the difficulty in monetizing AI toy manufacturers.
The toy manufacturers choosing to create “AI accessories” have all experienced a shift from desktop robots to portable devices. This consistent shift actually reflects that AI companion hardware manufacturers are adjusting their thinking, targeting young users as core audiences, and using the “accessory” form to achieve more frequent and intimate companionship scenarios, but the ultimate goal may still be “to use AI to attract people to accompany people”. We will continue to monitor the subsequent developments of AI accessories as they explore this new path.
References:
1. Zhu Xiaohu’s bet on the 300 yuan AI toy must first overcome the “return wave” – Baobian
2. After raising an “AI pet” for a month, I found this business full of bubbles – Silicon-based Research Institute
3. Not making “AI companionship” robots, but raising tens of millions – AI No Quadrant
Data from SimilarWeb, Diandian Data, Semrush, and other third-party platforms may contain certain discrepancies with real data and are for reference only.
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