Moxie Goes MIA: The Rise and Fall of a Friendly AI Face

The pint-sized robot buddy Moxie, designed to keep kids company with its expressive face and conversational charm, is being powered down for good. Its maker, Embodied, is facing some serious financial woes, leaving Moxie’s once lively screen now eerily quiet—like a Netflix show that ended on a cliffhanger and never got renewed.

Launched in 2020, Moxie was aimed at kids 5 to 10 years old, engaging them in chatty banter, games, and even robot-fueled jokes. But with its cloud-based brain now offline, parents are left explaining to their kids why Moxie won’t wake up anymore. (Good luck framing that bedtime story.)

This shutdown highlights a harsh reality: when our AI friends go belly-up, they leave behind more than hardware—they take the emotional connections we build with them. Rest in peace, Moxie. You were too charming for this economy.