Chinese Robotics Firm Brings Panda Companion Bot to Europe

A panda-shaped robot designed to keep children and vulnerable adults company just crossed the English Channel, and its maker priced it like a premium laptop rather than an industrial machine. Mind With Heart Robotics unveiled AnAn to European audiences on September 5, 2026, at IFA Berlin's Robots and Runway showcase, with retail pricing set between $1,000 and $1,500.

The China-based company, founded and led by CEO Jiaming Zhang, is not treating this as a one-off trade show appearance. It has signed distributor agreements in Germany and Belgium and opened a dedicated repair and after-sales center in Belgium to support European buyers directly.

AnAn arrives with a reputation already attached: it was named a CES 2026 Innovation Awards Honoree in the Artificial Intelligence category earlier this year. The robot is built around proactive interaction and reminder functions, paired with long-term memory that lets it adapt to an individual user's habits over time.

Physically, AnAn uses full-body tactile sensors so it can respond to being touched with movement and simulated emotional reactions, an attempt to make the companion feel responsive rather than scripted. A separate business-focused version adds secure dashboards that let care providers track behavioral trends and interaction patterns, positioning the robot for use in clinical or care-facility settings, not just family homes.

A Companion, Not Just a Toy

Alongside AnAn, Mind With Heart Robotics is bringing its Duncan Series companion robots into Europe, aimed specifically at neurodivergent and typically developing children in early education contexts. That pairing suggests the company is targeting two adjacent but distinct markets: general consumer companionship through AnAn, and structured developmental support through Duncan.

The scale of the rollout remains modest for now. Mind With Heart has completed an initial production run of just 100 AnAn units, a figure that signals a controlled, distributor-led entry rather than a mass-market push. That cautious approach tracks with the after-sales infrastructure the company has already put in place before wider availability.

For a category that has struggled to move past novelty status, the combination of tactile feedback, memory personalization, and institutional-grade monitoring tools suggests Mind With Heart is betting on care and education settings, not just the living room, to prove out demand. Whether European regulators and care providers embrace an AI companion robot built around emotional feedback and behavioral tracking is the next test, one that a 100-unit production run won't answer on its own.