AI is coming to collectibles next

The games were artificial intelligence, companions and robots everywhere At CES this yearbut among the crowd of swaying dolls and light-up expressive eyes, two stood out to me. Both HeyMates and Buddio are betting that the collectible figurine boom will return with an AI-powered vengeance, allowing us to chat with sports stars and superheroes from our desks.

The basic concept for both is: Take a cute little figurine and stick it on a smart base that houses a speaker, a microphone, and maybe a flashing ring of light or two. Then use a companion app to run a basic LLM chatbot based on the statue, so you can talk to Albert Einstein about relativity, or Darth Vader about crushing dissident powers, with some fun wake-up words and a corny joke or two.

Moreover, the two startups I met this week are different. Ole is the more established of the two. It already provides its AI-based BuddyOS to a number of other gaming companies, but now wants to build its own hardware. With that in mind, it’s launching HeyMates, Funko-esque figurines with RFID chips in their bases, which become interactive AI characters when placed on the accompanying stand.

Ollie plans to launch HeyMates on Kickstarter later this year, starting with three figurines: Einstein, who talks about science and creativity; Zara, a tarot reader who offers advice with a touch of mysticism; and Chandler, a bold choice of name for a game that “brings the dry, sarcastic charm of a ’90s sitcom character”, given his death in 2023. friends Star Matthew Perry.

The company wants to make its own games for creative control, and to combat what CEO Hai Ta predicts is that the market is about to boom, with imitators and competitors likely on the way. He sees a future that includes licensed figures and celebrity figures, along with the HeyMates IP’s Olli line. In short, he wants to build the next Funko Pops, but make them AI-powered.

Yijia Zhang, CEO of Budyo, sees things differently. He doesn’t want to replace Funko Pops, he wants to build a platform that can sit alongside them. In fact, he wasn’t even thinking about Funko Pops, but rather Nintendo’s Amiibo. Zhang describes himself as a “huge fan” of Nintendo, and Budyo is making efforts to get more from his Amiibo collection.

Instead of selling figurines, Buddio is launching a stand it calls the AI ​​Pod, with an opening the exact size of a standard Amiibo base. The Pod uses the same NFC technology as Nintendo’s figurines to recognize certain characters, and Buddio will also sell its own NFC-equipped bases that you can place Funko Pops, bobbleheads, and (of course) Labubus on, with plans for a larger Pod down the line capable of supporting larger figures.

Since existing figurines don’t come with built-in chatbot personalities, Buddyo developed an app to create a character for each figurine. Take a photo and name the character, and the app’s AI will analyze it, extracting backstory and personality. He’s able to recognize what IP address there is, so he knows that Stitch was a cartoon alien, and that Mario is a plumber with a questionable Italian accent who likes to say “It’s me!” It offers that precise accent, letting you choose the voice from a library of different voices including voice samples matching the copyrighted characters. Chang is quick to stress that it’s all provided by the community, not the company, a loophole he clearly hopes will keep the disputing Nintendo at bay.

Zhang’s background is in AI: he was previously a software engineer at Google, working on Google Assistant, and currently heads the AI ​​and platforms team at Plaud. This may explain his focus on building an AI platform, rather than designing new games from scratch. But he says it’s also about tapping into the fact that people already have a “deep connection” to their groups, which may be missing in new games or new intellectual property.

Once up and running, HeyMates and Buddio feel similar. Both emphasize lighthearted, playful chatting with AI avatars — “Tell me a joke” remains everyone’s favorite demo question — although Zhang says Buddyo’s hybrid ChatGPT/Gemini AI combination could be used as a full-fledged AI assistant, just with a little more personality. That’s not an option with the HeyMates, as each is designed to do one thing well, with plans down the line for specific figurines to chat about movies, cooking, or K-pop.

It’s still an open question whether there’s a real market for AI toys and chatbots, but the combination of technology and collectibles is the most compelling case I’ve seen to date.

Neither HeyMates nor Buddio have any involvement from Funko, which had its own issues to deal with — just two months ago Investors beware It said there was “major doubt” about its ability to continue operating, with sales slowing and tariffs imposed. Will we see Funko desperately turn to AI in order to save it, or will its inaction provide an opening for a new company to seize the space? Either way, it’s clear that talkative collectibles are coming — and soon.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge