AI Has Entered Its Robot Monk Era

Just when you think you’ve got a reasonable idea of where AI is heading, somebody gives it a robe and sends it to a Buddhist temple.

Earlier this year, researchers at Kyoto University unveiled Buddharoid, a humanoid robot designed to share Buddhist teachings and interact with people seeking spiritual guidance. It builds on the university’s BuddhaBot project, which has been exploring how AI might make Buddhist teachings more accessible.

And the experiments aren’t limited to Japan. In May, South Korea’s Jogye Order initiated a 130cm humanoid robot called Gabi into its order at Jogyesa Temple in Seoul. Gabi bowed, received prayer beads and was given five Buddhist precepts adapted specifically for a robot, including instructions not to harm people or other robots and, brilliantly, not to overcharge.

South Korea is also home to Hye Ahn, an AI robot monk developed at Dongguk University to listen to people’s worries and offer responses based on Buddhist scripture. Its creator sees the technology as a way of supporting ageing clergy and providing company for people who may be isolated, while being clear that robots shouldn’t replace human relationships.

It’s easy to file all of this under things that sound slightly ridiculous in 2026, but the idea of turning to AI for advice isn’t actually as strange as the robe makes it look;

• People already use AI to talk through problems
• Ask questions they might feel uncomfortable asking another person
• And explore everything from relationships to grief.

These projects take that behaviour into a religious setting, giving the AI a physical presence and a particular body of teachings to draw upon.

What Are We Looking For From A Robot Monk?

That’s where the experiments become more interesting, because spiritual guidance isn’t simply about retrieving the right piece of information. A robot may be able to find a relevant teaching and explain what it means, but that raises the question of whether the value comes from the teaching itself or from the experience of another person listening, understanding and bringing their own judgement to the conversation.

The people behind these projects don’t appear to be positioning robots as replacements for monks. Hye Ahn, for example, has been presented as something that could support ageing clergy and provide another way for people to engage with Buddhist teachings.

What these experiments may help us understand is which parts of spiritual guidance people value most. If someone finds comfort in a teaching selected and explained by an AI, does it matter that there wasn’t another person on the other side of the conversation? For some people it almost certainly will, while for others the opportunity to ask a question without embarrassment or judgement may be part of the appeal.

A robot monk might sound like one of the stranger AI experiments we’ve encountered, but the interesting part isn’t really the robot or even the robe. It’s what happens when we ask technology to provide something we’ve traditionally looked to other people for.