Hugging Face launches agentic toolkit for Reachy Mini

Hugging Face launches agentic toolkit for Reachy Mini">

Hugging Face has unveiled an innovative agentic toolkit that enables users to create functional apps for its compact, open-source desktop robot, Reachy Mini. This user-friendly toolkit allows anyone to build a working app in under an hour, without requiring any coding knowledge. Instead, an AI agent writes, tests, and ships the code to the robot.

The process is remarkably straightforward: users simply describe the desired behavior in plain English, and the AI agent takes care of the rest. According to Clément Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, "For 60 years, robots were built by roboticists. As of today, they can be built by anyone." The company's goal is to democratize robotics by eliminating the technical barriers that have traditionally stood between an idea and a working robot.

Historically, three significant hurdles have hindered the development of robots: expertise, expensive hardware, and weeks of integration work. Hugging Face aims to overcome these obstacles by leveraging AI, affordable hardware, and streamlined integration. The Reachy Mini robot, which is just 11 inches tall, 6.3 inches wide, and weighs 3.3 pounds, is an ideal platform for this innovative approach.

Joel Cohen, a 78-year-old retired marketing executive, is a prime example of the kind of user Hugging Face is targeting. Despite having no development or robotics experience, Cohen was able to build an app for his Reachy Mini Lite robot. With the robot sitting on his desk, Cohen created a voice-controlled AI co-facilitator for the CEO peer groups he runs on Zoom.

The robot, which Cohen refers to as his "VP of future thinking," has a personality and can facilitate discussions, ask questions, and even summarize key themes. The Reachy Mini App Store already features over 200 apps, and users can create their own by interacting with a machine learning intern or their preferred AI agent. All apps are hosted on the Hugging Face Hub, where they can be searched, forked, and installed with a single click.

Additionally, every app can be tested in a browser-based simulator, allowing users to explore the catalog without owning the hardware. With this agentic toolkit, Hugging Face is poised to revolutionize the field of robotics, making it more accessible and engaging for a broader audience. As Delangue noted, "When the software is open-source, and an AI agent can write the code, the gating that used to come from technical knowledge just disappears."