A robot programmed to act like a 7-year-old girl works to combat fear and loneliness in hospitals

Days after Meagan Brazil-Sheehan’s 6-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia, they were walking down the halls of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center when they ran into Robin the Robot.

“Luca, how are you?” it asked in a high-pitched voice programmed to sound like a 7-year-old girl. "It’s been awhile.”

Brazil-Sheehan said they had only met the 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter-tall) robot with a large screen displaying cartoonlike features once before after they were admitted several days earlier.

“His face lit up," she said about the interaction in June in Worcester, Massachusetts. "It was so special because she remembered him.”

Robin is an artificial intelligence -powered therapeutic robot programed to act like a little girl as it provides emotional support at nursing homes and hospital pediatric units while helping combat staffing shortages. Five years after launching in the U.S., it has become a familiar face in 30 health care facilities in California, Massachusetts, New York and Indiana.

“Nurses and medical staff are really overworked, under a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, a lot of times they don’t have capacity to provide engagement and connection to patients,” said Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, which developed the robot. “Robin helps to alleviate that part from them.”

As AI increasingly becomes a part of daily life, it's found a foothold in medical care — providing everything from note-taking during exams to electronic nurses. While heralded by some for the efficiency it brings, others worry about its impact on patient care.

Robin is about 30% autonomous, while a team of operators working remotely controls the rest under the watchful eyes of clinical staff. Khachikyan said that with each interaction, they’re able to collect more data — while still complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — and get closer to it being able to function independently.

“Imagine a pure emotional intelligence like WALL-E. We’re trying to create that,” he said, referencing the 2008 animated film.

On a recent Friday, a staff member at HealthBridge Children’s Hospital in Orange County, California, read off a list of patients she needed Robin to visit, along with the amount of time to spend with each one.

The robot with a sleek white triangle-shaped frame that Khachikyan said was designed for hugging, rolled into a room with a teenager injured in a car accident. The robot played what it described as his favorite song — “No Fear” by DeJ Loaf — and he danced along. In the hallway, Robin cracked up a young child held by her mother when it put on a series of silly glasses and a big red nose. In another room, the robot played a simplified version of tic-tac-toe with a patient.

Samantha da Silva, speech language pathologist at the hospital, said patients light up when Robin comes into their room and not only remembers their names but their favorite music.

“She brings joy to everyone,” da Silva said. “She walks down the halls, everyone loves to chat with her, say hello.”

Robin mirrors the emotions of the person it is talking with, explained Khachikyan. If the patient is laughing then the robot laughs along, but if they're sharing something difficult, its face reflects sadness and empathy.

In nursing homes, Robin plays memory games with people suffering from dementia, takes them through breathing exercises on difficult days and offers them a form of companionship that resembles a grandchild with a grandparent.

Khachikyan recalled a moment last year at a facility in Los Angeles where a woman was having a panic attack and asked specifically for the robot. Robin played songs by her favorite musician and videos of her favorite animal — Elvis Presley and puppies — until she had calmed down.

But with the Association of American Medical Colleges projecting that the U.S. will face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians in the next 11 years, Khachikyan’s vision for Robin goes far beyond this type of support.

He said they’re working to make the robot able to measure patients’ vitals and check to see how they’re doing and then send that information to their medical team. Longer term plans include designing Robin to help elderly patients change their clothes and go to the bathroom.

“Our goal is to design the next evolution of Robin; that Robin will take more and more responsibilities and become even more essential part of care delivery,” Khachikyan said.

He clarified that it’s not about replacing health care workers but about filling in the gaps in the workforce.

At UMass Memorial Children’s, the robot is very much a part of a team of support for patients. When Luca needed an IV after not getting one in a while, Micaela Cotas, a certified child life specialist came in with the robot and showed him an IV and what was about to happen, and then Robin played a cartoon of it getting an IV put in.

“It just kind of helps show that Robin has gone through those procedures as well, just like a peer," Cotas said.

Robin was developed by Khachikyan while he was getting his Ph.D. He said growing up in a single-parent household in Armenia had been lonely, so years later he wanted to build a type of robot that could act as a person’s friend.

Developers tested it in a variety of industries before an investor suggested that pediatric hospitals would be a good fit because of the stress and loneliness children often feel.

“That was kind of an aha moment,” he said. “We decided, OK let’s try it.”

They had success introducing it at a pediatric hospital in Armenia and by 2020 launched a pilot program at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital.

Since Robin was created, its personality and character have changed significantly based on the responses from people it interacts with.

Khachikyan gave the example of Robin’s answer to the question: “What is your favorite animal.” Initially they tried having the robot respond with dog. They also tried cat. But when they tried chicken, the children cracked up. So they stuck with it.

“We created Robin’s personality by really taking users into the equation,” he said. “So we often say that Robin was designed by users.”

Associated Press journalist Damian Dovarganes contributed to this report.

Robin the Robot, developed by Expper Technologies, visits patients' rooms at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Activities Coordinator Melissa Delaney interacts with Robin the Robot as it visits patients' rooms at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Cara Nguyen with her daughter, Kathy, 18, are visited by Robin the Robot at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025.(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Robin the Robot, developed by Expper Technologies, interacts with Erica Ruiz and her daughter, Valentina, at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Robin the Robot visits with a patient at the HealthBridge Orange Specialty Pediatric Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Protesters confronted federal officers Thursday in Minneapolis the day after a woman was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

The demonstrations came amid heightened tensions after President Donald Trump's administration dispatched 2,000 officers and agents to Minnesota for its latest immigration crackdown.

The killing of 37-year-old Renee Good on Wednesday set off a clash between federal and state officials over whether the shooting appeared justified and whether a Minnesota law enforcement agency had jurisdiction to investigate.

Here's what is known about the shooting:

The woman was shot in her SUV in a residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where police killed George Floyd in 2020. Videos taken by bystanders and posted online show an officer approaching a vehicle stopped in the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle draws his gun and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the officer gets struck by the SUV, which speeds into two cars parked on a curb before stopping.

Good died of gunshot wounds to the head.

A U.S. citizen born in Colorado, Good described herself on social media as a “poet and writer and wife and mom." Her ex-husband said Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school Wednesday and was driving home when she encountered ICE agents on a residential street.

He said Good and her current partner moved to Minneapolis last year from Kansas City, Missouri.

Good's killing is at least the fifth death to result from the aggressive U.S. immigration crackdown the Trump administration launched last year.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that there would be a federal investigation into the shooting, though she again called the woman’s actions “domestic terrorism.”

“This vehicle was used to hit this officer,” Noem said. “It was used as a weapon, and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy."

Vice President JD Vance said the shooting was justified and referred to Good's death as "a tragedy of her own making.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone when he described the shooting to reporters Wednesday. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had watched videos of the shooting that show it was avoidable.

Noem has not publicly identified the officer who shot Good. But she spoke of an incident last June in which the same officer was injured when he was dragged by another driver’s fleeing vehicle. A Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed Noem was referring to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Court records from that case identify the officer who was dragged and injured as Jonathan Ross.

Court documents say Ross got his arm stuck in a vehicle’s window as a driver fled arrest in Bloomington, Minnesota. The officer was dragged 100 yards (91 meters) and cuts to his arm required 50 stitches.

Drew Evans, head of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said Thursday that federal authorities have denied the state agency access to evidence in the case, barring the state from investigating the shooting alongside the FBI.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz demanded that state investigators be given a role, telling reporters that residents would otherwise have a difficulty accepting the findings of federal law enforcement.

“And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president to Kristi Noem," Walz said.

Noem denied that Minnesota authorities were being shut out, saying: “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation."

Dozens of protesters Thursday morning outside a Minneapolis federal building being used a base for the immigration crackdown. Border Patrol officers fired tear gas and doused demonstrators with pepper spray to push them back from the gate.

Area schools were closed as a safety precaution.

Protests were also planned across the U.S. in cities including New York, New Orleans and Seattle.

Protesters confront federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

People gather for a vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a motorist earlier in the day, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

People participate in a protest and vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)