For years, “home robots” have basically meant one thing: a round vacuum that bumps into your furniture like it’s playing bumper cars.
But at CES 2026, LG showed up with something far more ambitious. Meet CLOiD, the company’s first-ever AI-enabled home robot, designed to handle actual household tasks like folding laundry, helping in the kitchen, fetching items, and even coordinating other smart devices around your home.
And unlike the usual concept demos that feel like science fiction posters, CLOiD was shown doing real tasks on the CES show floor.
CLOiD is LG’s take on a robot home helper that’s built for practical indoor work. It’s life-sized, has a humanoid upper body, articulated arms, and a wheeled base that moves it around the house without needing to “walk.”
In simple terms: it’s not trying to be a robot athlete. It’s trying to be useful.
LG says CLOiD is meant to reduce the time and effort required for everyday chores, and it does that by combining AI, cameras, sensors, and smart home integration through LG’s ThinQ ecosystem.
The most attention-grabbing thing CLOiD did at CES was fold laundry.
It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t perfect. And it definitely wasn’t doing that crisp “hotel towel fold” that makes you feel guilty about your own life choices.
But it did fold towels, one after another, with careful, deliberate movements. Each fold took roughly half a minute, and while the results were slightly messy, the bigger point was this: it didn’t fail.
That alone feels like a milestone, because laundry folding is one of those tasks that sounds easy until you realize how much fine motor control it needs.
One limitation though: CLOiD didn’t pull towels out of a hamper by itself. An attendant had to place each towel in position for it to fold.
So yes, the robot is helping… but it still needs help too.
Another demo had CLOiD “fetch” a drink from the fridge.
It successfully brought out a jug of milk and placed it on the counter. But it didn’t pour it into a glass.
Which makes sense, because pouring is one of those deceptively hard tasks that requires precision, angle control, and feedback in real time.
Still, as a first step, fetching objects from appliances is a big deal, especially when the robot is meant to work inside a connected LG home.
One of the more practical “this would actually save me time” moments was when CLOiD was shown retrieving lost keys from under a sofa.
And honestly, this might be one of the most relatable use cases of all.
Because folding laundry is impressive, sure. But finding keys that disappeared into the furniture dimension? That’s a real household superpower.
It’s also a great example of what CLOiD is being built for: not just repeating a single programmed action, but handling everyday situations where objects are awkwardly placed and humans don’t want to bend, crawl, or move half the living room to grab them.
CLOiD isn’t just built to do chores with its hands. It’s also designed to act like a moving control hub for your home.
During the demo, CLOiD detected a dirty patch on the floor and commanded an LG robot vacuum to clean it up.
And the vacuum, like a loyal employee trying not to get fired, immediately got to work.
This might be the real secret sauce: CLOiD isn’t trying to replace every appliance. It’s trying to coordinate them, so your home feels more automated as a system, not as separate gadgets.
CLOiD’s design is very deliberate:
A humanoid upper body for handling objects
Two articulated arms for manipulation
A wheeled base for stable movement and navigation
LG says the wheeled base helps keep the robot stable and safe, with a low center of gravity that reduces the risk of tipping over if a child or pet bumps into it.
The torso can also tilt to adjust height, which helps it pick up items from knee level and above.
And the arms? They’re designed with a human-like range of movement, with multiple joints and finger control meant for fine handling of household objects.
CLOiD’s head unit is more than just a face.
It houses the processing hardware, cameras, sensors, speakers, and a display, and it’s meant to function as an AI hub that understands what’s happening in your home and responds using natural voice interactions.
LG is clearly positioning CLOiD as a robot that can learn routines, recognize environments, and help manage connected devices based on what it observes.
CLOiD becomes much more capable when it’s connected to LG’s ThinQ ecosystem, including ThinQ On. That means its usefulness depends heavily on having compatible LG appliances and devices in your home.
So it’s not just “buy a robot and it works everywhere.”
It’s more like: buy into the ecosystem, and the robot becomes your coordinator.
CLOiD is still a concept with no confirmed release timeline, but the fact that LG is even showing a robot like this publicly feels like a shift.
Because when a major appliance brand enters the home robotics space seriously, it signals something bigger: this category is moving from “cool demos” to “real product direction.”
CLOiD didn’t empty a dishwasher at CES (maybe next year), and it’s not replacing your daily chores overnight. But it’s a clear glimpse of what the next generation of home automation could look like.
Not just a smarter vacuum.
A robot that actually helps.
