Jeff Bezos made a bold bet in 2017. A fan of science fiction and robotics, he was convinced that consumers would own household robots in the near future. The Amazon founder and then-CEO told a group of the company's top device executives to start building a robot.

Within a few years, the team had built the $1,450 Astro. The public first saw Astro at Amazon's fall 2021 event. Astro is essentially a wheeled tablet equipped with Alexa that can autonomously navigate the home, recognize faces, and act as a mobile security monitor. But it never moved beyond its "invite-only" product stage. Astro shipped to only a few thousand customers, some of whom now believe the robot's days are numbered. The company also launched an enterprise-focused Astro in 2023 but discontinued that product less than a year later.

Despite Astro's repeated setbacks, Amazon has not given up on Bezos's household robot dream. Over the past few months, the company has assembled a new team that is developing a "world-first robotic product." A recently deleted engineer job posting read: "Robots are about to step out of movies and into our homes." The posting detailed a product capable of navigating "dynamic home environments" and "operating autonomously alongside family members."

Amazon is known for long-term bets, even if they may be "misunderstood" in the short term, as long as they give the company an early advantage in a new market—just as it did with the Alexa voice assistant or the Kindle e-reader. In his latest annual shareholder letter, CEO Andy Jassy reminded investors that AI and robotics are "one of the biggest inflections of our lifetime." Jassy wrote: "We work hard to anticipate what will make customers' lives easier and better every day, and to invent the next inflection."

Analysts also expect the humanoid robot market to surge in the coming years. In a January report, Barclays predicted that the global market, currently valued at $2 billion to $3 billion, could reach about $40 billion by 2035, and as much as $200 billion under a "most optimistic scenario."