SINGAPORE, May 7 (Xinhua) -- As evening falls, crowds begin to gather at Sensoryscape, a tourist site on the island resort Sentosa, in Singapore. With the sea breeze blowing and music filling the air, five AI-powered robot dogs start dancing to the rhythm.
They wave, jump, spin, and roll on the ground. After the performance, they even interact and "chat" with visitors. Children excitedly run around them, while adults use their phones to capture photos and videos.
May-line, a tourist from Paris, France, held onto one of the robot dogs while enthusiastically asking her mother to take pictures and videos.
"It feels like I'm walking a dog, but it's a robot. That's very funny and very surprising for me," she told Xinhua on Tuesday, adding that she would definitely share the photos and videos with her friends back in France.
From April 18 to May 17 this year, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Chinese travel platform Mafengwo jointly launched a pilot AI robot dog service at Sentosa and Mandai Wildlife Reserve in Singapore.
These AI robot dogs from China can not only "talk," but also "guide," "dance," and entertain visitors with playful gestures, offering overseas tourists a brand-new smart tourism experience.
Those robot dogs were developed by Unitree Robotics, a technology company in China, while Mafengwo specially trained them for tourism scenarios. Equipped with multilingual interactive narration and multimodal environmental perception capabilities, the robot dogs can actively recognize surrounding environments, understand tourists' needs, answer questions through reasoning, and interact with visitors through various body movements.
Prior to arriving in Singapore, the robot dogs had already appeared at several tourist destinations in China. Their deployment in Singapore marks their first official overseas "assignment."
Addison Goh, divisional director of Business & Experience Development Division at the Sentosa Development Corporation, told Xinhua on Wednesday that there are currently five robot dogs operating in Sentosa.
"They are probably busier than I am," he said, adding that every day, the robot dogs conduct guided tours, perform multiple dance shows, and patrol around to interact with visitors.
More importantly, the robot dogs are powered by AI models.
Visitors can not only ask them for directions, but also receive personalized recommendations. Families may be guided to family-friendly restaurants, while younger visitors can get suggestions for photogenic attractions and social-media-worthy spots. The robot dogs also provide location-based storytelling and explanations, creating a more immersive experience for tourists.
So far, more than 5,000 visitors have interacted with the robot dogs. Whether it's the performances or the guided tours, the feedback has been extremely positive, Goh said.
Another important goal of the pilot project, he explained, is to continuously collect interaction data through the robot dogs, including high-traffic areas, visitor preferences, and frequently asked questions. The data will then be used to further optimize the large language models and improve the overall tourism experience.
The Singapore Tourism Board described the pilot project as "an exciting step towards reimagining visitor experiences through technology and innovation."
In recent years, Singapore has been actively promoting its "Smart Nation" initiative, and the tourism sector has become a major testing ground for AI applications.
Unlike traditional smart tourism solutions that focus mainly on online bookings, digital payments, or backend data management, these AI robot dogs emphasize the interactive experience of AI in real-world settings.
AI is no longer just an invisible algorithm operating behind the scenes. Instead, it has directly entered tourism environments to perform tasks such as guiding visitors, interacting with guests, recommending routes, and staging performances -- becoming a kind of "travel companion" for tourists.
From China to Singapore, these robot dogs are bringing the warmth of technology to visitors from around the world. Rather than just cold machines or lines of code, they are gradually becoming companions that tourists can touch, communicate with, and even share part of their journeys with. ■
