Microduck's 20,000 preorders test the pull of AI robot toys

A small waddling robot just gave consumer AI hardware its clearest demand signal in a while. It is worth being precise about what that signal is.

During Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote at GTC Berlin, a flock of Microducks stomped around the stage, chirped with tiny droid-like sounds, sat down, flopped over for a pretend nap and did somersaults on voice command. The clip spread quickly. By the next day, according to Hugging Face's Clem Delangue, preorders had passed 20,000 units.

Preorders, not sales

The 20,000 figure counts orders placed, not robots delivered. The Microducks are expected to arrive before Christmas, so no one has yet lived with one. The number also comes from a Hugging Face executive, and Hugging Face is now part of Nvidia, which put the robots on stage. That does not make it wrong. It does mean the sales story is still a forecast.

Preorders are a measure of desire, not of satisfaction. Christmas will supply the second number.

Delangue's own forecast is bold: he thinks the Microduck could be the best-selling robot of the year, and not only with children. The promotional videos show adults playing with it too.

Why this one moved

The Microduck is open source and built by Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired in 2025. Nvidia then bought Hugging Face in September. It is Hugging Face's second robot, after the Reachy Mini.

Its tricks come from simulation. Virtual copies of the robot learned the basics, such as walking, sitting and standing, using Nvidia's software stack, and the physical units ship with those skills. Pollen says owners can teach their robots new tricks and share them with the community.

That last detail may matter more than the cute factor. A toy that owners can keep teaching, and whose new skills spread through a shared community, behaves less like a gadget and more like a platform. If that holds, the product keeps changing after purchase, which a plastic toy cannot do.

What it signals

One viral video and one tweet do not make a market. But a simulation-trained robot drew five-figure preorders in about a day, with no obvious practical use beyond delight. That suggests the appetite for AI in physical form is not limited to factories and labs.

The test comes after delivery. If the robots arrive on time and owners keep teaching them and sharing what they learn, the Microduck will look like the start of a category. If they end up in a drawer by January, it was a very good keynote. Preorders measure desire, not satisfaction, and the holiday season will provide the second number.