LG CLOi ServeBot: a serving robot for restaurants and hospitals, folded into Bear Robotics

After the airport guide, restaurant serving

After its guide robots at Incheon Airport in 2017, LG Electronics released a range of service robots under the CLOi brand. In 2020 it moved the robot business from research and development into its Business Solutions division to commercialise it. The CLOi ServeBot was shown as a restaurant robot at CES in January 2020, and on the 31st of that month one unit started work at CJ Foodville’s Jeil Jemyeonso restaurant at Seoul Station. LG then launched drawer and shelf versions, and the first drawer unit went to Seoul National University Hospital. In June 2020 LG agreed with Baemin’s operator Woowa Brothers and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement to develop serving and bussing robots suited to Korean restaurants.

A delivery robot that rides elevators, a US launch, and discontinuation

The ServeBot also left the restaurant. It rode elevators to deliver goods from GS25 convenience stores to offices. GS Retail said robots at its GS Tower store made 22 deliveries a day on average and that delivery sales rose 50% on the same period of the previous month. In hospitals it carried specimens by elevator between 13 labs. LG launched a shelf model in the US in 2022, a third generation with six wheels and independent suspension in 2023, and a door-type delivery model in 2024. In July 2024 it began a three-year subscription at ₩660,000 a month. In January 2025, however, LG raised its stake in Bear Robotics to 51% and decided to merge its whole CLOi-centred commercial robot business into Bear. As of October 2026 LG’s US business site lists all three ServeBot models as discontinued. The Korean site still takes quote requests.

Company figures, few voices from the floor

Most published results come from LG and its partners. A pilot in Paik Jong-won’s The Born Korea restaurants and LG Uplus’s serving-robot service were presented as cutting the walking staff do between kitchen and hall. This research found no direct quote from owners or staff, and no independent study. In 2022 an LG official said that because robots need expertise, the company planned a sales channel that would handle only these products. The same report said the channel was meant to compete with Chinese robots spreading in the market.

A conglomerate’s robot folded into a start-up

The CLOi ServeBot is less a failed product than a case of a business being restructured. It found uses in restaurants, convenience stores and hospitals, but LG gathered its commercial robot business around Bear Robotics’ Servi, which does the same job. Like the Incheon Airport guide robot, replaced by another company’s robot after its pilot, this record shows that a robot’s fate is not set by performance alone.

When a company winds down a business, who looks after the robots already on site?

What we haven’t confirmed

• Total units sold or in use
• The exact Korean launch date (LG’s newsroom page shows no date, so only 2020 is given)
• When US sales ended and how existing customers are supported
• Whether ServeBots in Korea will be replaced by Bear Robotics products after the merger