After an initial appearance at CES 2025, the Hengbot $1,299 Sirius robot dog is going on preorder Thursday, highlighting an agile body that’s able to play soccer while also integrating with OpenAI to develop its own personality.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

While robot dogs have been around for decades with brands like Sony’s Aibo, Hengbot’s Sirius robot is putting a particular emphasis on how quickly it can move. The company has been showing this off in videos that demonstrate it dancing to piano music or shaking hands next to an actual dog. The Sirius robot has a total of 14 axis across its legs and head along with proprietary joints named Neurocore that let it move more naturally. 

Hengbot says it’s also customizable using a «game-like» editor, featuring the ability to customize the robot’s personality to be more like specific dogs such as a Corgi, set up different facial reactions to appear on its head or upload voice packs to customize what the robot sounds like. 

However Hengbot does note that, because this is a robot after all, the Sirius robot dog is meant primarily for flat indoor surfaces and isn’t meant to be played with outside. So while dancing and soccer games (which can be played with an included controller) are fine, the Sirius robot is unlikely to be running up and down the stairs of a house. The robot’s battery will also let it run for 40 to 60 minutes when moving or one to two hours when standing still and Hengbot says it takes about an hour to recharge. Other specs on Sirius include an 8-megapixel camera used for vision, two USB-C ports used for development and accessories

Using a network connection, the Sirius robot develops it’s personality with an integration with large language models like OpenAI, which it also uses to process voice commands. This can include asking it to dance, sit or to act like other animals like a cat. Hengbot says the dog itself does not collect data but also advises that the Sirius is designed more for adults who would like to use some of the more creative features that the dog is capable of. 

And that distinction is important, as AI is still prone to hallucinations and other mistakes. For instance, last year my colleague Bridget Carey tested a ChatGPT-enabled teddy bear named Poe made by the Los Angeles-based toy maker Skyrocket. The bear created stories using prompts within the app but at launch its vocabulary was rather verbose for young audiences. While Hengbot’s Sirius robot will primarily be dancing, barking and moving about, Hengbot does say that the Sirius robot is eventually intended to integrate with a wider creative platform meant for hosting and sharing different projects.

The Sirius robot is available to preorder on Hengbot’s website and it’s expected to be available this fall.

Verizon’s cryptic Project 624 flew under the radar until this week, when the carrier announced a new customer service program built on Google Gemini AI technology that’s intended to resolve issues on first contact. If it works as intended, subscribers should be able to avoid the time-sucking support slog that is often a hallmark of modern troubleshooting.

Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO of Verizon’s consumer group, laid out changes to the customer experience that went live Tuesday, which include a team dedicated to satisfying customers in their first call (called the Customer Champion team) and improvements to the My Verizon app that leverage Google Gemini AI technology. There’s also expanded live customer agent hours and 24/7 live chat and a larger footprint of physical Verizon stores. The company will also offer more perks and giveaways. 

In an open letter laying out the carrier’s new customer service initiative, the consumer group CEO also included a direct email address, s.sampath@verizon.com, for customers to contact him.

But before we get into the specifics of what’s new, I wondered if the announcements were a direct reaction to the most recent quarter in which the company lost nearly 300,000 customers in the first quarter of 2025. Is the carrier boosting customer service to win back more subscribers?

«That’s a very fair question,» Sampath said. «The answer is quite straight: Every first quarter we lose customers, that’s the seasonality of the business. So this has nothing to do with our first quarter of business. This has to do with the two, three year transformation that we are in the middle of.»

He explained that improving customer experience is the next step after his prior efforts to revamp Verizon’s sales infrastructure and price plans.

Verizon may be the first carrier to get AI in its customer service platforms, but it’s not the only one thinking of including it. Last September, T-Mobile announced that it was partnering with OpenAI to include a new artificial intelligence offering to help customers, which would launch sometime in 2025. Whether Verizon’s system will get a leg up depends on what it’s got in store for helping subscribers get their essential questions answered.

Harnessing AI to create Customer Champions

Customer service for any industry is difficult, but that’s compounded for large mobile players like Verizon that provide connectivity for millions of customers across large swathes of area and technological hardware. And because phones have gained outsized importance in our lives, having something go wrong with one’s link to the outside world can ratchet up frustration.

«I get a lot of emails from customers every day, and they’re not pretty,» said Sampath. He estimates that 80% of the time, customers get their issue resolved on the first call. About 15% have to call again, maybe twice. «The last 5% go into a doom loop, and they are the most dissatisfied. It’s a very rough journey for them. We see it, and it’s not fair on them.»

To try to avoid that loop, Verizon is launching its so-called Customer Champion team that uses Verizon-customized Google Gemini 2.0 models to process calls, identify solutions and keep the customer updated throughout the resolution process. It’s an approach inherited from systems Verizon has been using for its enterprise customers.

«We’ve been doing that for a few months now in pilot [programs], and 90% of the time we solve issues the first time around,» he said. As the program proceeds, he hopes to get that number up to 95 or 96%.

Google Gemini is also an important part of an update to the My Verizon app. The AI-powered Verizon Assistant has been built with input from Google engineers and embedded with Verizon-specific context. As a practical example, the technology can enable Verizon to deal with problems proactively.

«If your phone is lost in transit, I know it because FedEx told me it didn’t get delivered,» he said. «Why do I need you to call me and let me know your phone got lost?»

In such a case, Verizon uses AI to identify the problem, automatically open a case and get back to the customer with a plan to resolve it. Sampath explained that Verizon essentially creates a small language model for each case, and compared that to the large language models (LLMs) that have more visibility in the industry right now. The small, bespoke models don’t have general knowledge around life.

«I don’t need to know what the Romans did,» he said. «I need to know why my bill went up. And we go ahead and do exactly that.»

LLMs, however, are not always known for their accuracy. Sampath said that a year and a half ago they were seeing a 30%-40% error rate, but that has now improved to «well north of 90% accuracy. And when it’s inaccurate, it’s only mildly inaccurate because of the way we do it. We don’t get crazy answers on [it].»

Expanding live customer support and store footprint

With this surge in using AI to handle customer issues, I naturally wanted to know if that would negatively affect Verizon staffing. If Verizon’s Gemini model can deal with most requests, does that take humans out of the loop and off the payroll?

«We’ve used AI to basically take cognitive workload off our employees so that they can focus their bandwidth and headspace on listening to customers better,» Sampath said. «That’s the right way for us to go. Look, if I need to take out costs, there are simpler ways for me to do it. I don’t need to deploy AI and all the complexity that goes with it. And for us, AI is all about problem solving.»

As part of this new customer support initiative, Verizon is expanding its live support options in several ways. Representatives will be available from 9 a.m. until midnight (local times) via phone calls, expanded from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m., and during the rest of the clock via live chat.

«[Stuff] happens when you least expect it, and I don’t want you to have to wait until the morning, because things can change,» he said.

The network of physical Verizon stores also plays a part, because «we want to be in your community,» Sampath said. He noted that Verizon is recommitting to the retail experience, having added around 400 new stores in the last couple years and plans to keep expanding the company’s brick-and-mortar footprint.

Verizon Access rewards platform

In today’s mobile provider environment, perks have become powerful incentives, with carriers offering extras from conventional add-ons like streaming services and in-flight Wi-Fi to the assortment of giveaways in T-Mobile Tuesdays. On this front, Sampath made a point of differentiating Verizon’s offerings from the competition.

«Look, we don’t give you $3 off your Little Caesars Pizza… you don’t get a large popcorn versus a medium popcorn. I’m sure there’s good value in that,» he said. «We give you bucket-list things you can do,» citing examples such as tickets to NFL games, Katy Perry and Beyoncé concerts. 

Starting today through June 30, Verizon is giving away 35,000 free prizes in drops from its Verizon Access program, «anything from tickets to devices and a bunch of other things to keep our loyalty going.»