{"id":393901,"date":"2026-01-05T21:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393901\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:06:12","slug":"sorry-tamagotchi-fans-its-ai-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393901\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry Tamagotchi Fans, It’s AI Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

When they said, \u201cNothing in this world is sacred,\u201d they meant Tamagotchis<\/a>, too, or at least Tamagotchi rip-offs. While you might remember your virtual pets of yore with all the analog goodness that the \u201990s had to offer, this is the year of our lord 2026, and everything has to have AI. Yup, everything.<\/p>\n

While the Sweekar<\/a>, which I saw at CES 2026<\/a>, isn\u2019t actually a Tamagotchi, it pretty much is in everything but name, and, as you may have already guessed from the words above, it\u2019s centered on AI.<\/p>\n

What exactly is that AI doing? Ya know, just normal stuff that allows it to \u201cfeel your touch\u201d and remember \u201cyour voice, your stories, and your quirks.\u201d It\u2019s time to go deeper with your virtual pets, people. Clicking a few buttons until they inevitably die from neglect isn\u2019t enough. On a hardware level, there\u2019s some cute stuff happening. The egg one kind of vibrates and shakes and grows, which is a fun tactile experience.<\/p>\n

\"Sweekar\"\u00a9 James Pero \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

As far as capabilities go, the Sweekar allegedly \u201cneeds your love, just like a real pet,\u201d which also means it has moods like happy, angry, sleepy, and something that Takway.Ai, which makes this little toy, is calling \u201csneaky smile,\u201d which is basically just mischievous? I think? I shudder to think what else it could mean.<\/p>\n

Just like a Tamagotchi, the Sweekar has growth cycles that include an \u201cegg stage,\u201d a \u201cbaby stage,\u201d a \u201cteen stage,\u201d and an \u201cadult stage.\u201d At each stage, the pet is supposed to gain certain abilities and continually grow and understand more about you and your personality.<\/p>\n

More than anything, though, the Sweekar is centered around using AI for memory, so it can remember your name and your favorite color and that time you forgot its birthday. This Tamagotchi\u2019s therapy bill is going to be sizable. The people at Takway.Ai tell me that it\u2019s using a combination of Google\u2019s Gemini<\/a> and ChatGPT<\/a> to do that, and that everything you tell the Sweekar is private, though I obviously cannot verify the data practices of a company selling an AI Tamagotchi at CES.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the whole issue with AI toys having a mind of their own<\/a>, which means you may want to think twice before you give this little guy to a kid.<\/p>\n

If an AI Tamagotchi is really high on your list of things that you absolutely must have then you can eventually throw money at Sweekar\u2019s Kickstarter in March. While there\u2019s no official price right now, the makers of this little virtual pet say it\u2019ll likely debut for between $150 and $200.<\/p>\n

Gizmodo is on the ground in Las Vegas all week bringing you everything you need to know about the tech unveiled at CES 2026. You can follow our CES live blog here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0find all our coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When they said, \u201cNothing in this world is sacred,\u201d they meant Tamagotchis, too, or at least Tamagotchi rip-offs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,197167,175771,105,18705],"class_list":{"0":"post-393901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-ces","14":"tag-ces-2026","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-toys"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}