Key Notes
- Smart Life Week runs October 6–8 at COEX in Seoul.
- The broader event has 529 participating companies, public institutions and city governments; the Seoul AI Robot Show program lists 51 companies.
- Humanoid sports and performances share the program with service, industrial and care robotics.
Humanoid robots danced to K-pop, exchanged badminton shots with a human opponent and sparred in a miniature boxing ring as Smart Life Week 2026 opened at Seoul’s COEX on October 6, putting physical AI at the center of the city’s technology showcase.
The three-day event runs through October 8 and brings together 529 participating companies, public institutions and city governments, the Korea Times reported. Its opening-day demonstrations illustrated the shift from software that generates answers to machines that sense, move and interact with people.
Humanoids Share the Floor With Practical Robots
The Seoul AI Robot Show occupies Hall B. Seoul’s robot show preview lists 51 participating companies, including Hyundai Motor and Kia’s Robotics LAB, LG CNS and Doosan Robotics. That figure covers the robotics program, rather than the wider Smart Life Week exhibition.
The lineup pairs entertainment with workplace and service applications. Hyundai and Kia’s MobED mobility platform and X-ble Shoulder wearable robot appear alongside food-service cobots, care systems and autonomous machines. Robotis’ Sapiens is among the humanoids highlighted in the city’s publicity materials.
The program also includes disaster-response challenges, robot-operated food and beverage services, performances and sports. Seoul’s approach gives visitors ways to encounter robotics beyond a factory demonstration, while giving suppliers access to investors and prospective partners.
Raibert Looks Toward Robots That Learn From People
Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert, executive director of the RAI Institute, delivered the opening keynote. According to the Korea Times, he discussed robots learning by observing human actions and eventually helping with household work and elder care.
Those ambitions concern a broader range of tasks than the routines on an exhibition stage. A performance can demonstrate movement and coordination; useful assistance in a home also requires reliable perception, manipulation and responses to changing surroundings.
Seoul already has a consumer-facing example in Galaxy Corporation’s Robot Park, previously covered by RobotsBeat, where humanoids perform K-pop routines and take part in interactive experiences. The expo brings that entertainment appeal into a wider discussion of urban services.
Seoul Connects the Showcase to Its Physical AI Strategy
Hall A presents future-city experiences through showrooms modeled on eight Seoul landmarks. The city’s official program also includes Tokyo and Beijing pavilions and 18 conferences and forums spanning AI, robotics, mobility and urban policy.
The Korea Times reports that Seoul’s planned Physical AI Belt would connect AI Tech City in Yangjae with the robotics cluster in Suseo. The corridor is part of the city’s effort to serve as a testing ground for technologies that operate in public spaces and everyday settings.
Moving from a showcase to sustained deployment remains a separate challenge. South Korean suppliers are preparing a care robot council to seek clearer safety, liability and home-data rules. For Seoul’s physical AI ambitions, those operating conditions matter alongside advances in robot hardware and learning systems.
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