Last week in Shanghai, a crowd watched a machine try to become Michael Jackson.
The machine is called the A3. It’s a humanoid robot, which means it’s built with a head, two arms and two legs so it can move a bit like a person. A Chinese company named AGIBOT showed it off in late October at AGIBOT Innovation Day 2026, held at the Shanghai World Expo Center. The company was there to show new hardware and AI models too, and it presented the A3 as a robot for entertainment and business demonstrations.
Then someone had a fun idea. Why not teach it Michael?
According to MJVibe, a Michael Jackson fan news site that reported the demo on Nov 4, the A3 stands about 173 cm tall. That’s around 5 feet 8 inches. It weighs about 55 kg, or roughly 121 pounds. And its makers dressed it for the part, MJVibe says, in a black fedora, a black jacket, a white shirt and dark trousers.
If you’ve never seen the A3 move at all, this introduction to the robot is a good place to start before you add the hat.
Meet AGIBOT’s A3 humanoid robot
For its Michael routine, the robot struck his signature poses. It spun. It worked through his arm moves and gliding footwork. And it saved the big one for the finish.
MJVibe says “the robot attempted to recreate Michael Jackson’s iconic backward-gliding movement,” and the site calls that moonwalk attempt the highlight of the whole routine. MJVibe has posted the clip of the routine on its own site.
“Attempted” is the fair word here. Nobody’s claiming it was perfect. But it’s hard not to grin at a robot in a fedora trying to slide backward across a stage.
Now for the part longtime fans will enjoy most.
Michael was doing robot moves long before any robot could do Michael.
Back in 1973, the Jackson 5 had a song called “Dancing Machine.” When they performed it, teenage Michael danced the Robot, a move where the dancer locks into stiff, clicking steps like a machine coming to life. He’d done it before. But on Oct 27, 1973, he did it on “Soul Train,” the famous TV dance show, and Wikipedia’s history of the song says that “this time it was fully caught on camera.”
The song did pretty well, too. “Dancing Machine” climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974 and hit No. 1 on the soul singles chart.
Here are the Jackson 5 performing “Dancing Machine” on “Soul Train” in 1973, so you can compare the original Robot with the one wearing the fedora.
The Jackson 5 perform “Dancing Machine” on “Soul Train”
So the story loops right back around. Fifty-three years ago, a Jackson brother danced like a robot on TV, and now a robot is out there doing its best to dance like Michael.
Watch both clips back to back and you can decide for yourself which one moves smoother. We have a pretty good guess.