Portuguese 
English 
Spanish 
4 min of reading 
0 comments 
Created by BotBot, a São Paulo-based startup founded in January 2025, the artificial brain called BotBrain was presented to g1 at the São Paulo Innovation Week in May 2026. The rental costs US$ 1,000 per month, about R$ 5,000, without the robot, sold separately.
A Brazilian startup created an artificial brain that promises to make robots smarter for work in companies. Named BotBrain, the device attaches to robots and aims to enable them to perceive the surrounding environment in tasks such as security rounds, inspections, and monitoring of risk areas. According to g1, which learned about the project during the São Paulo Innovation Week in May 2026, the technology is from BotBot, a startup founded in January 2025 in São Paulo.
The proposal is for robots to stop merely repeating programmed movements and start interpreting information about their surroundings. According to Danielle Santos, head of projects at BotBot, it is the use of artificial intelligence that, in her words, “really makes the robot more useful and functional.” For now, the technology is aimed at companies, but the company says the path could lead, in the future, to smarter robots at home.
What is the artificial brain BotBrain
The artificial brain created by BotBot is a purple device, called BotBrain, that attaches to the robot. According to Danielle Santos, the technology is compatible with bipedal robots, the humanoids, with quadruped models, in the puppy style, and with robots that move on wheels. The device includes cameras, sensors, and speakers, and operates integrated with software on the computer.
-
Dark oxygen produced by metallic stones at a depth of 4,000 meters in the Pacific Ocean challenges what was known about the origin of life and puts the race for seabed mining in the Clarion Clipperton Zone in check.
-
James Webb seals the fate of asteroid 2024 YR4, which once had a 4.3% chance of hitting the Moon, and NASA’s final calculation shows a safe passage at 21,200 kilometers from the satellite on December 22, 2032.
-
It was supposed to be just another Roman coin, but Kevin, with his metal detector, found a 17-century-old gold ring, hidden along with 297 coins, ceramics, and lead objects in Somerset.
-
A ship pierced a secret window at the bottom of the ocean and extracted the largest piece of Earth’s mantle ever brought to the surface.
In practice, a human operator can monitor, configure, and define the actions of the robot that receives the artificial brain. According to the company, in some robots, the physical module is installed directly, but there are manufacturers that do not allow this type of adaptation. In these cases, only the BotBrain software is transferred to the machine, without the purple piece.
What it’s for, according to the company
BotBot’s bet is to give practical utility to robots that today do little more than move around. According to Danielle Santos, the artificial brain allows the use of robots in property rounds, security inspections, and monitoring of risk areas. The idea, still according to the company, is for the machine to circulate the environment to check, for example, if employees are wearing helmets, or to detect gas leaks and fire hazards, something that common robots do not do.
The system is also presented as capable of making decisions based on previously defined rules. The company gives as an example a robot that maps an environment with five doors that must remain closed and, upon finding one open during the round, sends an alert to the security center. According to BotBot, the technology could also monitor structures like bridges and dams, with the robot inspecting and relaying the information to a human.
How much it costs and the current status of the project
For now, having such an artificial brain is not cheap. According to the report, renting the system costs US$ 1,000 per month, about R$ 5,000, and does not include the robot, which is sold separately by other manufacturers. According to Danielle Santos, the price is still high because the technology is new, and customers receive updates whenever the product improves.
BotBot is still a small company seeking growth. According to g1, the startup has nine employees and maintains offices in São Paulo and Portugal. The company is looking for new investments to expand the business and claims to have already attracted the interest of foreign companies, although the project is still in its early stages.
A global race for smarter robots
The idea of an artificial brain for robots is not exclusive to BotBot. According to g1, other companies are also working to make machines smarter with artificial intelligence. This is the case of Skild AI, founded in 2023, whose system, according to Nvidia, a partner of the company, has already performed simple tasks in tests, such as cleaning a table and putting headphones back in their case.
Industry giants have also entered this race. According to the report, in January 2026, Boston Dynamics, one of the largest robot manufacturers in the world, announced a partnership with Google DeepMind to make humanoids smarter, focusing on industrial tasks, starting with the automotive industry. In an interview with g1, in February 2026, Marcio Aguiar, director of Nvidia for Latin America, stated that the market is already looking at “Physical AI,” the integration between artificial intelligence and physical systems like robots.
The artificial brain of BotBot shows that Brazil is also trying to enter the race to make robots more useful in daily life. The proposal is interesting, especially for security and inspection tasks in companies, and even for monitoring structures like bridges and dams, but it still faces high costs, the initial stage of the project, and competition from global giants. The future will tell if the BotBrain will move from innovation events to widespread market use.
And you, would you like to see robots with this type of artificial brain working in companies, or even at home? Share your opinion and exchange ideas with other readers about the advancement of intelligent robots.
Be the first to react!