IFA 2026. The Robot Fetches Popcorn

Monday 7 September, the fourth of five days. MESSE BERLIN stands in capitals on the rotunda at the entrance, with Haier, Midea and Xiaomi hung above it and the fair's motto beside it in blue: Innovation for all. IFA has been running since 4 September. On the badge handed out at the registration point, the address of this website is printed under the name, and next to it PRESS.

The halls are numbered like arithmetic. 3² Communication & Connectivity, 5² with the iZone and the Dream Stage for the Innovation Award, 6² Computing & Gaming with an Indie Game Area where people show their own games on folding tables. Four shuttle lines run between the halls.

What stands out is how many different things carry the label AI. At TCL, glasses lie on illuminated ring stands, with AI Agent and AI Cueing on the wall behind them. At XbotGo it is called AI Sports Tracking, and what is meant is a camera that follows a football. At Siemens a system called i-Dos measures out the detergent. In one hall a curved white wall carries washing machines, air purifiers and speakers in tiers like an amphitheatre, roped off in front, with THE SURGING WAVE OF AI in lit letters above it. The word no longer separates one thing from another.

The crowds gather around the humanoids. The fair's own photographs show this better than mine: football robots at RoboCup on green artificial turf, children at the barrier. A white humanoid scooping popcorn out of a machine, three rows of raised phones in front of it. In a small ring a robot boxing with guests, a wall behind it advertising a pocket-sized AI exoskeleton. RoboCup ran in Hall 15 on all five days. What gets demonstrated are tricks.

The devices that actually get something done stand around less conspicuously. Dreame has built a living room, a humanoid standing in it, next to it two robot vacuums with an extending arm and a laundry basket as a prop. The vacuum was the one that moved; the humanoid stood.

The household robot is sold as a pet. The ollobot stands alone on a plinth behind two velvet ropes, with a holographic wall of collectible cards behind it. At SwitchBot, plush robots called KATA Friends sit on pedestals among handbags. One section at Dreame is called Smart Pet Appliances. What is on offer is company.

The shift that actually matters has no stand with velvet ropes. Tuya lays out developer boards and a small red robot arm, and the sign calls the whole thing a Flagship Multi-Modal Interaction Platform. Above one aisle a Nanoleaf ticker counts the automations running right now, more than a million of them. Another exhibitor advertises an AI Workflow Controller. Whoever supplies the platform decides later what the devices are allowed to do.

Bosch puts a dishwasher made of glass on a plinth and runs it, the water hitting the pane. Siemens sets a cutaway washer-dryer beside it with a sign: Do not touch. The robots are closed black shells. You cannot see anything in them.

A Miele banner hangs above the entrance hall: The end of housework is in sight. The sentence is about as old as the fair. At half past five the mobility test area outside was empty, barriers with IFA banners, the brick hall behind them. IFA runs until Tuesday.

Photographs: the author's own, plus IFA Management GmbH and Dominik Tryba, Introduce Productions, for IFA Berlin.