The Robot in My Living Room: A New Frontier for Product Liability and Privacy Claims

Humanoid robots are no longer prototypes. Figure AI, Unitree, 1X Technologies, and Tesla have placed learning, adapting machines inside private homes, and Goldman Sachs now projects a $38 billion market by 2035. No coherent U.S. regulatory framework governs these devices, and the existing rules were written for Roombas and factory arms, not autonomous humanoids that rewrite their own decision-making after purchase. That gap is about to produce a wave of novel litigation. This program examines how traditional product liability theories, design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure to warn, break down when applied to a continuously learning robot, and how liability may be distributed across hardware makers, foundation model developers, system integrators, and owners. Ian Stewart, Wilson Elser, walks through the convergence of injury and privacy claims, the CCPA, CPRA, BIPA, and COPPA exposure created by always-on cameras and biometric collection, and the "silent AI" coverage gaps facing homeowners, manufacturers, and insurers. Attendees will leave understanding where the first serious home-robot lawsuits are likely to land and what documentation and coverage language positions clients to withstand them.