JD.com Unveils First 'AI Home' at WAIC 2026: From Homework-Helping Lamps to Taste-Remembering Kitchens

At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), JD.com has made its most comprehensive push into physical AI to date, unveiling the JoyAI model matrix alongside the company's first JoyInside "AI Home"—a fully integrated smart living space designed to transform passive gadgets into proactive family companions.

The demonstration, held on July 18, marks a significant departure from conventional voice-controlled smart homes. JD's AI Home spans four core living zones: the living room, kitchen, study area, and bedroom, each equipped with contextually aware devices that anticipate needs rather than merely respond to commands.

In the study area, an AI projection desk lamp demonstrates educational capabilities that extend beyond illumination. Using screenless diffuse reflection projection technology, the device can scan homework problems, provide grading, and deliver real-time tutoring explanations when children encounter difficult questions.

The kitchen integration addresses meal preparation through personalization. Connected appliances remember individual family members' taste preferences and dietary restrictions, offering step-by-step cooking guidance tailored to specific health needs and flavor profiles.

Living room interactions have been streamlined to near-conversational levels. When a resident casually mentions feeling thirsty, smart tea bar stations autonomously confirm optimal water temperature and dispense drinks without requiring specific voice commands or manual inputs.

Perhaps the most intimate application appears in the bedroom, where smart mattresses continuously monitor respiratory patterns and body movement during sleep. The system generates comprehensive weekly and monthly sleep reports, potentially identifying health anomalies before they become critical.

JD emphasizes that JoyInside represents a fundamental architectural shift. Rather than simply adding voice Q&A capabilities to existing hardware, the platform implants dedicated "AI brains" into each device. This allows televisions, lighting systems, plush toys, and companion robots to operate as a coordinated ecosystem that understands emotional states and user intentions.

The technical infrastructure supporting this vision comprises four layers: real-world data collection to provide experiential training material, specialized models for understanding and decision-making, terminal hardware and scenario-based applications for execution, and JD Cloud's AI infrastructure handling training, deployment, and scaling operations.

Commercially, the initiative has already secured partnerships with nearly 200 brands across home appliances, robotics, health technology, and toy manufacturing. JD projects that JoyInside will connect over 10 million hardware devices by the end of the year, representing a massive scale-up from cloud-based AI capabilities to tangible in-home services.

The company also announced the open-sourcing of what it describes as the industry's largest human-perspective dataset, potentially accelerating development across the broader physical AI sector while establishing JD's technical standards as an industry baseline.