Empathic humanoid robots such as Pepper and NAO are already finding their way into clinical practice, supporting patients, families and care teams in a range of healthcare settings. A new set of scoping reviews by researchers from the University of Victoria (UVic) provides an overview of how these robots have been used to date, how effective they have been, and what limitations still need to be addressed before wider adoption becomes reality.
The reviews were conducted by the Global Lab for Digital Health and AI Innovation at UVic and published in 2025. They focus specifically on the use of the Pepper robot in healthcare and the NAO robot in both healthcare and education. The work comes at a time when expectations around humanoid robotics are rising sharply. According to Morgan Stanley, as many as one billion AI-enabled humanoid robots could be in use worldwide by 2050, representing a market valued at $5 trillion. At the same time, the World Economic Forum predicts that AI will fundamentally transform healthcare delivery.
Real-world applications, not science fiction
Examples of humanoid robots in healthcare are already well documented. In France, Pepper has supported children undergoing auditory rehabilitation after cochlear implantation. In Canada, the robot has been used to help reduce anxiety in children prior to surgery. In Australia, a NAO robot delivered motivational interviewing to adolescents with diabetes, encouraging healthier dietary choices. These initiatives, implemented between 2018 and 2021, demonstrate that social robots can play a meaningful role in patient support.
Pepper and NAO are among the earliest examples of social and empathic humanoid robots. NAO, developed by SoftBank Robotics, was first released in 2008. Standing 58 centimetres tall, it can walk, speak and communicate in 20 languages. Pepper, introduced in 2014, is larger at 121 centimetres and combines speech recognition, facial expression analysis and AI to interact with users in a more emotionally responsive way.
“Pepper has been successfully used for dementia care, neurodevelopmental disorders and chronic illness education. It has also been used to address caregiver shortages and in cognitive stimulation therapy,” says Andre Kushniruk, professor of health information science at UVic and lead author of both reviews.
Elizabeth Borycki, co-author and also professor of health information science at UVic, adds: “NAO robots also show significant potential in health care and in education. They have been shown to be effective in managing children's anxiety, and in supporting diabetic youth. Robots, when designed to be empathetic, prove to be an engaging and alternative way of supporting health and wellness.”
Ethics, safety and trust
Despite the promise, the researchers emphasize that important questions remain. “Future research needs to consider the ethical, health care and societal implications of robots undertaking health-care activities,” says Kushniruk. Key issues include fairness and bias, explainability of robot behaviour, safety, and the accuracy and timeliness of the information or support provided.
Empathy plays a central role in whether humanoid robots can be successfully integrated into care teams. Ongoing research by Kushniruk, together with Seper Rohani and Borycki, explores how empathy can be designed into human-robot interaction. Their work looks at two dimensions: robots that express empathy toward humans, and robots that evoke empathetic responses from users.
The team will present their findings at the Medical Informatics Europe 2026 conference in Genova, Italy. As healthcare systems face growing pressure from workforce shortages and rising demand, empathic robots may become a complementary tool, provided their use is guided by careful design, robust evidence and clear ethical frameworks.
