KettyBot: Pudu’s delivery and reception robot with an advertising screen

A delivery robot with an 18.5-inch advertising screen

KettyBot is a delivery and reception robot that Pudu Robotics unveiled worldwide at an event in Moscow in September 2021. Pudu is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, and was founded in 2016. The body is a forward-leaning C shape and the minimum passage width is 55 cm. An 18.5-inch advertising screen wakes and the robot greets people by voice when they pass. It finds its way with laser and visual sensors and runs up to 8 hours on a charge. It can deliver to several tables in one run, and a cruise mode carries free snacks and drinks around a set area while broadcasting promotions. A scheduler can coordinate up to 100 robots on the same network. Pudu’s launch release called it “a low-cost and high-efficiency solution.”

From KFC and Walmart to the 2024 Pro

According to Pudu, KettyBot was used at KFC, MediaMarkt, Pizza Hut and Walmart to deliver orders, promote products and welcome guests. On 31 January 2024 Pudu announced a successor, KettyBot Pro. A fisheye camera above the tray detects whether items are present and moves on once the customer takes the food. The minimum passage width fell to 52 cm, and expressions, voice and lines can be changed. A black colour was added. The official page lists no price. US sellers showed $11,700 (RobotShop) and $14,000 (RobotLAB, which also lists a $395–$479 monthly subscription). SeafoodSource reported in September 2023 that the advertised US price was about $12,000 for KettyBot and about $16,000 for BellaBot. Pudu’s total shipments were about 70,000 in January 2024, and its 2026 company page says over 120,000 to 130,000. It has not disclosed KettyBot’s own figure.

Servers went from 5–7 tables to 8–10

According to the Orange County Business Journal, Kura Sushi had completed its robot rollout in all 37 of its US stores by June 2022 and had deployed more than 60 robots companywide, made by Pudu Robotics. The same article says servers typically handled five to seven tables and handled eight to ten with the robots. That article calls the robot “KuraBot” and does not use the name KettyBot. An April 2026 post by partner RobotLAB said the chain runs 116 KettyBots in more than 60 locations (its introduction says 120 or more, so the post differs within itself). The robots help with drink deliveries, food runs and bussing. Hideto Sugimoto of Kura Sushi USA said: “We couldn't really fit the larger [robots] in there and the KettyBots were the winners.” RobotLAB estimated about 4,000 robot work-hours a month, more than 21,000 tasks a month and about $590,000 in annual labour value. It is partner material calculated from industry benchmarks.

Giving the serving robot’s screen to advertising

Pudu presented KettyBot as a delivery robot and a promotion medium at once. That differs from its BellaBot, which leads with a cat-face screen and expressions. KettyBot also has expressions and voice interaction, but the title of its product page calls it a promotion robot from the start. The effect confirmed in public material, however, was not advertising but the number of tables a server could handle. How much the advertising screen offset the robot’s cost is unknown.

If a robot’s screen is given over to advertising, what will guests expect from the robot?

What we haven’t confirmed

• KettyBot’s own worldwide sales (Pudu discloses only total shipments)
• The effect of the advertising screen on sales or guest response
• Whether the 2021 original is still sold, its official price, and its payload (sources give 30–40 kg or 10 kg per tray layer)
• How many units actually run in stores other than Kura Sushi