内容来源：https://www.theverge.com/tech/859994/ai-collectibles-funko-pops-amiibo-buddyo-heymates-ces-2026

内容总结：

在今年的国际消费电子展（CES）上，AI玩具、伴侣和机器人随处可见。其中，两款主打“AI+收藏玩偶”概念的产品引人注目——HeyMates与Buddyo，它们正试图以人工智能技术重塑收藏玩偶市场，让用户能与桌上的体育明星或超级英雄角色实时对话。

这两款产品的核心思路相似：为可爱玩偶配备智能底座，集成扬声器、麦克风与灯光效果，并通过配套应用程序驱动基于大型语言模型的聊天功能。用户可用唤醒词与“爱因斯坦”探讨相对论，或和“达斯·维达”聊聊镇压叛军，对话中还会穿插趣味笑话。

不过，两家初创公司的具体路径有所不同。更为成熟的Olli公司此前已为多家玩具商提供AI系统BuddyOS，如今计划推出自有品牌HeyMates。这类玩偶底座嵌有RFID芯片，放置于专用支架上即可激活AI交互功能。首批产品计划今年在众筹平台推出，涵盖科学家、塔罗师、情景喜剧角色等形象。公司CEO Hai Ta认为收藏玩偶市场即将爆发，希望以“AI+IP”模式打造新时代的Funko Pop。

Buddyo则选择了平台化路线。其创始人张一甲（音）自称任天堂“超级粉丝”，受Amiibo启发开发了通用AI底座“AI Pod”。该底座适配标准Amiibo尺寸，通过NFC识别角色，用户也可为Funko Pop等现有玩偶配备定制底座实现AI化。配套App能通过拍照识别角色并自动生成背景故事与人格，甚至模拟版权角色的标志性声音。张一甲强调声音库来自社区创作，以规避版权风险。他认为用户与现有收藏品的情感联结是新产品难以替代的优势。

尽管实现方式不同，两款产品最终都指向轻松有趣的对话体验。Buddyo依托混合AI架构兼具助手功能，而HeyMates则专注于垂直领域深度交互，未来计划推出电影、烹饪、K-pop等主题的专属玩偶。

当前Funko公司正面临经营困境，尚未涉足AI领域。这为新兴企业提供了发展窗口。尽管AI聊天玩偶的市场前景尚待验证，但“收藏品+AI”的融合模式已展现出令人信服的潜力。可以预见，能对话的智能收藏品即将走进消费者的生活。

中文翻译：

今年国际消费电子展上，人工智能玩具、伴侣和机器人随处可见，但在成群蹒跚的毛绒玩偶与闪烁表情符号眼睛的包围中，有两款产品令我格外瞩目。HeyMates与Buddyo都坚信，收藏级手办热潮将借人工智能之力强势回归，让我们能在书桌前与体育明星和超级英雄畅谈。

人工智能即将重塑收藏品市场

当潮流玩偶遇见人工智能

这两款产品的核心理念如出一辙：将可爱造型手办放置在智能底座上，底座配备扬声器、麦克风，或许还有一两圈闪烁灯环。再通过配套应用程序驱动基于手办角色的基础大语言模型聊天机器人，让你能用趣味唤醒词与阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦探讨相对论，或和达斯·维达聊镇压叛军的话题，其间还会穿插些俏皮笑话。

除此之外，我本周接触的这两家初创企业则各有侧重。Olli是其中更成熟的一家，它已为多家玩具公司提供其人工智能驱动的BuddyOS系统，但现在希望打造自有设备。为此，他们推出了HeyMates系列——这类类似Funko风格的玩偶底座嵌有RFID芯片，置于配套底座上即可化身为互动式人工智能角色。

Olli计划今年晚些时候在Kickstarter启动HeyMates众筹，首发三款玩偶：探讨科学与创造力的爱因斯坦、带着神秘色彩提供建议的塔罗占卜师扎拉，以及大胆命名为钱德勒的玩偶——鉴于《老友记》演员马修·派瑞于2023年离世，这款玩具旨在"呈现90年代情景喜剧角色那种冷面讽刺的魅力"。

公司希望自主开发玩具以掌控创意方向，并抢占先机。首席执行官海塔预测该市场即将爆发，模仿者与竞争者必将接踵而至。他展望的未来图景包含授权角色与名人形象，以及Olli自有的HeyMates知识产权系列。简而言之，他想要打造下一代Funko潮流玩偶，但赋予其人工智能内核。

Buddyo首席执行官张一佳则有不同见解。他并非想要取代Funko玩偶，而是希望构建一个能与之并存的平台。实际上，他真正参照的并非Funko，而是任天堂的Amiibo。张一佳自称任天堂"超级粉丝"，Buddyo正是他为拓展个人Amiibo收藏价值所做的尝试。

Buddyo不直接销售玩偶，而是推出一款名为"AI基座"的智能支架，其卡槽尺寸与标准Amiibo底座完全吻合。该基座采用与任天堂玩偶相同的NFC技术识别特定角色，同时Buddyo也将销售自带NFC芯片的替换底座，让用户能将Funko玩偶、摇头娃娃（当然也包括Labubu）置于其上，并计划未来推出可容纳更大尺寸玩偶的扩展基座。

由于现有玩偶本身不具备聊天机器人人格，Buddyo开发了配套应用程序为每个玩偶创建角色。用户只需拍摄照片并为角色命名，应用内人工智能便会进行分析，生成背景故事与性格设定。该系统能识别现有知识产权角色——例如知道史迪奇是卡通外星生物，马里奥是操着可疑意大利口音、总爱喊"是我！"的水管工。应用还能精准还原角色口音，用户可从声音库中选择匹配版权角色的音效样本。张一佳特别强调这些音效均由社区提供而非公司制作，这显然是他为规避任天堂闻名遐迩的诉讼攻势而设计的策略。

张一佳拥有人工智能领域背景——他曾是谷歌助理团队的软件工程师，目前领导Plaud公司的人工智能与平台团队。这或许解释了他专注于构建人工智能平台与基座，而非从零设计新玩具的原因。但他表示这也得益于人们与既有藏品建立的"深厚情感联结"，这是全新玩具或原创IP难以复制的优势。

实际体验中，HeyMates与Buddyo颇为相似。两者都强调与人工智能化身进行轻松有趣的闲聊——"讲个笑话"始终是最受欢迎的演示问题。不过张一佳指出，Buddyo融合ChatGPT与Gemini的人工智能架构可作为完整AI助手使用，只是更具角色个性。HeyMates则不具备此功能，每款玩偶专精于特定领域，未来计划推出专攻电影、烹饪或K-pop话题的特别版手办。

人工智能玩具与聊天机器人伴侣是否存在实质市场仍是未知数，但将这项技术与收藏品结合，是我迄今为止见过最具说服力的方案。

HeyMates与Buddyo均未获得Funko授权，而Funko自身正面临严峻挑战——就在两个月前，由于销售放缓与关税压力，该公司向投资者发出持续经营能力存在"重大疑虑"的警告。我们是否会目睹困境中的Funko转向人工智能寻求生机？抑或是其按兵不动将为新兴企业接管市场创造契机？无论如何，能够对话的智能收藏品时代显然正在加速来临。

本文图片由The Verge记者多米尼克·普雷斯顿拍摄。

英文来源：

AI toys, companions, and robots have been everywhere at CES this year, but among the horde of waddling plushies and light-up emoji eyes, two stood out to me. HeyMates and Buddyo are each betting that the collectible figurine boom is going to come back with an AI-powered vengeance, letting us chat to sports stars and superheroes from our desks.
AI is coming for collectibles next
Funko Pops, but make it AI.
Funko Pops, but make it AI.
The core concept to both is this: Take a cutesy figurine and stick it onto a smart base with a speaker, microphone, and maybe a flashing ring of light or two. Then use an accompanying app to power a basic LLM chatbot based on the figurine, so you can talk to Albert Einstein about relativity, or Darth Vader about crushing dissident forces, with some fun wake words and a cheesy joke or two.
Beyond that, the two startups I met this week differ. Olli is the more established of the two. It already provides its AI-driven BuddyOS to a number of other toy companies, but it now wants to build its own devices. With that in mind, it’s launching HeyMates, Funko-esque figurines with RFID chips in their bases, which become interactive AI characters when placed on the accompanying stand.
Olli intends to launch HeyMates on Kickstarter later this year, starting with three figurines: Einstein, who chats about science and creativity; Zara, a tarot reader who gives advice with a hint of mysticism; and Chandler, a bold choice of name for a toy who “brings the dry, sarcastic charm of a ’90s sitcom character,” given the 2023 death of Friends star Matthew Perry.
The company wants to build its own toys for the sake of creative control, and to get ahead of what CEO Hai Ta predicts is a market about to boom, with imitators and rivals likely on the way. He sees a future involving licensed characters and celebrity likenesses, along with Olli’s own line of HeyMates IP. In short, he wants to build the next Funko Pops, but make it AI.
Yijia Zhang, CEO of Buddyo, sees things differently. He doesn’t want to replace Funko Pops, but build a platform that might sit alongside them. In fact, it’s not even Funko Pops he really has in mind, but Nintendo’s Amiibo. Zhang describes himself as a Nintendo “superfan,” and Buddyo is his effort to get more out of his own Amiibo collection.
Instead of selling figurines, Buddyo is launching a stand it calls an AI Pod, with a slot the exact size of a standard Amiibo base. The Pod uses the same NFC tech as Nintendo’s figurines to recognize specific characters, and Buddyo will also sell its own NFC-equipped bases onto which you can place Funko Pops, bobbleheads, and (of course) Labubus, with plans for a larger Pod down the line capable of supporting bigger figures.
Since existing figurines don’t come with chatbot personalities baked in, Buddyo has developed an app to create a character for each figurine. Take a photo and give the character a name, and the app’s AI will analyze it, pulling up a backstory and personality. It’s capable of recognizing existing IP, so it knew that Stitch was a cartoon alien, and that Mario is a plumber with a questionable Italian accent who loves to say “It’s-a-me!” And it does deliver that exact accent, letting you pick the voice from a library of different sounds including sound samples matching copyrighted characters. Zhang is quick to emphasize these are all provided by the community, not the company, a loophole he clearly hopes will keep the infamously litigious Nintendo at bay.
Zhang’s background is in AI — he was once a software engineer at Google, working on Google Assistant, and currently heads up an AI and platforms team at Plaud. Perhaps that explains his focus on building an AI platform and base, rather than designing new toys from scratch. But he says it’s also about taking advantage of the fact that people already have a “deep connection” with their collections, which would be missing from new toys or new IP.
Once they’re up and running, HeyMates and Buddyo feel similar. Both emphasize fun, lighthearted chitchat with the AI avatars — “tell me a joke” remains everyone’s favorite demo question — though Zhang says Buddyo’s hybrid ChatGPT / Gemini AI stack can be used as a full AI assistant, just with a little more character. That’s not an option with HeyMates, which are each designed to do one thing well, with plans down the line for specific figurines to chat about movies, or cooking, or K-pop.
It’s still an open question whether there’s a meaningful market for AI toys and chatbot companions, but combining the tech with collectibles is the most convincing case I’ve seen yet.
Neither HeyMates nor Buddyo has any involvement from Funko, which has its own problems to deal with — just two months ago it warned investors that there was “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating, as sales slow and tariffs bite. Will we see a desperate Funko turn to AI for its salvation, or will its inaction provide the opening for a new company to take over the space? Either way, it’s clear chatty collectibles are coming — and soon.
Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge