Roomba inventor and iRobot co-founder Colin Angle introduces Familiar Machines & Magic

Colin Angle, the Roomba inventor and co-founder of iRobot, announced the launch of his latest venture, Familiar Machines & Magic (FM&M), at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference.

FM&M emerged from stealth mode and introduced Familiars, which the company said are physically embodied AI systems designed to perceive their environment, develop a distinct personality and respond in ways that learn and evolve through life with the people around them.

Physical AI connects capability to human connection 

FM&M said that the global race to build physical AI is on. From humanoid robots promising factory labor to autonomous systems reshaping logistics, the company said that tens of billions of dollars are flowing into machines designed to move, lift, sort and transport.

Angle said that this is only half the opportunity - the back-end, industrial physical AI opportunity. He said that the other half is consumer-facing, for all of the use cases where robots will interact with humans, and it requires a fundamentally different approach.

“The next era of robotics is not just about dexterity or humanoid form - it’s about machines that can build and sustain human connection,” Angle said. “Today, we’re emerging from stealth to share our vision for systems that move beyond task execution and become a natural part of daily life.”

FM&M said that consumer physical AI demands human connection - the ability to not just perform physical tasks, but to understand, communicate and respond in ways that feel intuitive and supportive. This opportunity extends across daily life - anywhere people and machines intersect - not just within the home. The company added that consumer physical AI outperforms screens in these types of emotional work because people respond more strongly to physical presence. While chatbots are widely used for emotional support, they are often less effective and beneficial for their users.

FM&M said that it is focused on developing consumer physical AI systems that deliver this kind of interaction at scale by building Familiars. 

Bringing familiars to life

During a live conversation with Wall Street Journal Technology columnist Christopher Mims at Future of Everything, Angle introduced the first Familiar - the inaugural system powered by FM&M’s Consumer Physical AI platform.

The first Familiar is a quadruped, which FM&M said has been specifically designed for human-robot interaction, with 23 degrees of freedom enabling both lifelike movement and expressive behaviors.

The Familiar is covered with a custom touch-sensitive coat, a vision system, and a microphone array and audio system, to support rich interactions. The company said that its onboard edge AI stack is powered by a custom small multimodal model optimized for social reasoning, combining vision, audio, language and memory to create socially responsive behaviors in real time.

“iRobot proved that robots could deliver value at scale,” Angle said. “But they were still task machines. My goal has always been to create systems that understand context, remember interactions, and behave with consistency over time. That's what we're doing at Familiar Machines & Magic.”

Angle and FM&M said that the announcement at Future of Everything marks the company’s emergence from stealth and not a commercial product launch. The company said that specific applications, form factors and timelines will be shared in future updates.