DAL-e: a Hyundai robot that moved from a car showroom to office guide duty

A showroom guide that noticed visitors without masks

DAL-e is a customer-service robot that Hyundai Motor Group’s Robotics Lab developed over about two and a half years. Its name comes from “Drive you, Assist you, Link with you-experience.” It measures 1,160×600×600 mm, weighs 80 kg and gestures with movable arms. Its four independently controlled wheels let it move diagonally and turn on the spot. It greets customers with face recognition and dialogue, and detects visitors not wearing masks. It escorts customers through the showroom and links with a large display to show content. Its developers compared DAL-e to an intern.

From the Songpa-daero showroom to the Gangnam office

In January 2021 DAL-e began a pilot at Hyundai’s Songpa-daero showroom in Seoul. Hyundai Motor Group said that after the pilot it could extend to other Hyundai and Kia showrooms; this research could not confirm that it did. In June 2025 the group said DAL-e was being used as a guide robot at Hyundai’s Gangnam office. By then DAL-e used an on-device VLM to recognise visitors’ clothing and what they held, and gave them personalised greetings. A delivery robot under the same name, DAL-e Delivery, was due at Factorial Seongsu from Q2 2024, and in May 2026 it began service at the Yangjae headquarters.

One unanswered question can lose a customer

At launch, Robotics Lab head Dong Jin Hyun said: “The DAL-e is a next-generation service platform that can offer automated customer services anytime.” Input pointed out that “if DAL-e fails at responding to even one question, customers may give up.” This research found no reactions from actual customers.

A guide robot’s name passed to a delivery robot

DAL-e is a guide robot that a carmaker put directly into its own sales floor. It started in a showroom, but by 2025 it had moved to the company office. Meanwhile the DAL-e name widened to a delivery robot that rides elevators carrying coffee. LG’s airport guide robot in this archive was replaced by another company’s robot when its pilot ended. With DAL-e, the original model’s whereabouts have blurred, but its name and technology carried on in a robot doing a different job.

If this robot’s first job disappears, what carries on into the next robot?

What we haven’t confirmed

• How many DAL-e units were built
• Whether it actually expanded to showrooms beyond Songpa-daero
• When it moved to the Gangnam office
• Whether the original DAL-e still operates in 2026