Sony’s robotic dog, first marketed in 1999, was named Aibo.
Sony released the first consumer Aibo model, ERS-110, in Japan on 11 June 1999. Its name is associated with the Japanese words for “companion” and “friend,” and it was also styled as an acronym for Artificial Intelligence Robot. Aibo used sensors, motors, and software to imitate aspects of a dog’s behavior.
Different generations could walk, respond to touch and sound, recognize faces, and develop changing behavior through software. Sony stopped selling Aibo in 2006, but revived the product in 2018 with a cloud-connected model and updated artificial intelligence.
Aibo is not the same as Paro, the therapeutic seal robot, or Pleo, a dinosaur-shaped toy robot. Those products used different animal forms and were made by different companies.