As a partner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, to be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, the automaker released a five-part "School of Football" series on its official YouTube channel, the company said Thursday. The films show Atlas dribbling, passing and shooting with apparent ease.
In the clips, the robot pulls off a rabona — a flourish in which the kicking leg is wrapped behind the standing leg — and even lands a "ghost rabona," adding a feint to deceive a defender. To master the moves, Atlas modeled motion data from professional players and refined its technique through reinforcement learning.
Hyundai said the campaign demonstrated its capabilities in AI-driven reinforcement learning, precise mimicry of human movement and hardware control. The launch film, three training videos, and its final reveal video released through Friday on the group’s YouTube channel drew a combined around 48,600 views in their first five days.
"Through football, we have shown the world the future of robotics," said Jee Sung-won, head of Hyundai's brand marketing division, adding that the company plans to build varied brand experiences around mobility and robotics.
The campaign comes as Hyundai Motor Group prepares to put Atlas to industrial work. The group has said it intends to deploy more than 25,000 of the robots across Hyundai and Kia plants, beginning with parts-sequencing tasks at its Metaplant America facility in Savannah, Georgia, from 2028, as part of a broader bet on humanoid automation.
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