Investors bet humanoid robots will transform industry and homes over the next decade

Unitree Robotics humanoids dance on May 31, 2026, in Shanghai, for the opening of Asia's first embodied intelligence experience store. Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son told CNBC this week that physical AI and robotics were where he saw the next trillion-dollar company emerging from. Humanoid robots, designed to mimic human movement and capabilities, have been hitting headlines in recent years, from their use as baggage handlers at Japanese airports to Tesla's big bet on its Optimus humanoid. Market watchers have predicted that the machines will change the world over the next decade and forecast that the industry will grow 100-fold, as AI's physical capabilities evolve. One investor said consumer stocks were the path to unlocking value from it. Zornitza Todorova, head of thematic FICC research at Barclays and a co-author of the bank's "AI Gets Physical" report, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Thursday that "it's the decade of the robot." "Humanoid robotics is really on an upward trajectory," she said. "The size of the market today is really small, it's 2 to 3 billion [dollars], but we see it going up to $200 billion in 2035." According to Todorova's report, published earlier this month, humanoids "are automation 3.0." The machines are designed to fill structural labor gaps, the report said, with ageing populations, urbanization and changing job preferences leaving "dirty, dull and dangerous" roles well suited to robots. …