The Hyundai Motor Company used one of the world’s largest sporting stages to showcase its robotics ambitions.
The company brought Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas onto the field during halftime of the FIFA World Cup round of 16 match on Sunday won by Norway to 2-1 against Brazil.
In a tournament dominated by superstars like Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland, the 80,633 fans in attendance at MetLife Stadium – rebranded New York/New Jersey Stadium by FIFA because the company is not a World Cup sponsor – looked on as the robot put on its best soccer moves and handed the ball to the referee.
Sungwon Jee, executive vice president and global chief marketing officer at Hyundai Motor Company, said the company “wanted Atlas’s performance on the world’s biggest stage to demonstrate that the future isn’t something we imagine — it starts now.”
Atlas’ appearance marked the first time a humanoid robot was integrated into a live World Cup soccer game, according to Hyundai, which serves as FIFA’s Official Robotics Partner. The demonstration also represented the public debut of the production version of Atlas in a live event following its introduction earlier this year at CES 2026.
For Hyundai, the demonstration was more than entertainment. It highlighted the automaker’s growing investment in robotics as it seeks to position itself beyond traditional automotive manufacturing and into AI-powered mobility and automation technologies. Unlike past robots, Atlas was not programmed. Instead, it was trained to do various goal celebrations, including ones by Haaland and Harry Kane.
Atlas performed a series of soccer moves developed using a combination of motion retargeting, reinforcement learning and whole-body control. Together, those technologies allow the robot to learn human movements through thousands of simulated training sessions before executing them in dynamic real-world environments.
While the choreography was designed for a global TV audience, the underlying technology has broader industrial applications. The next-generation Atlas was built specifically for real-life applications. Unlike its predecessor, which served as an athletic research platform, this updated, cutting-edge version is designed to handle the unpredictable and rigorous demands of factory environments.
Standing 6-foot-2, Atlas weighs nearly 200 pounds and can lift 66-pounds. The company said it plans to build 30,000 robots each year. Boston Dynamics said the same AI training methods used to teach Atlas celebratory football movements are also being applied to warehouse automation and manufacturing tasks.
“Working with Hyundai Motor Group and FIFA to create such a unique moment for fans was an exciting challenge for our team,” said Alberto Rodriguez, director of robotics behavior at Boston Dynamics. “The way we trained Atlas to perform these movements at the match is similar to how we teach the robot to take on real-world industrial applications.”
The robot’s halftime appearance comes as Hyundai continues to expand its robotics strategy following its acquisition of a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics. The South Korean automaker said it has positioned robotics as a pillar of its long-term business, alongside electric vehicles, software-defined mobility and autonomous systems.
At a World Cup where technology has been integral, the activation builds on Hyundai’s broader “Next Starts Now” campaign surrounding this summer’s tournament, which has featured Atlas learning a series of soccer skills. As part of its campaign, Hyundai created School of Football, a five-part social film series following Atlas as it learns to play the game.
Hyundai said it plans to continue that storytelling with behind-the-scenes footage from the event and the release of “The Training Ground,” a documentary-style film produced with BBC StoryWorks branded content platform.
The demonstration also reflects a broader trend among technology companies to introduce advanced robotics outside controlled lab settings. Rather than limiting humanoid robots to factory floors or research facilities, companies are increasingly using high-profile public events to illustrate how AI-powered machines can safely operate in public environments.
Whether such demonstrations accelerate commercial adoption remains to be seen. But by placing Atlas on one of the world’s most-watched sporting events, Hyundai signaled that it sees robotics as central to its future identity — not simply as an engineering capability, but as a consumer-facing technology that could eventually become part of everyday life.
Clemente Lisi is the author of “The World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event, 2026 Edition.”
