OKA Introduces Mori, "The Nature Companion," a New Kind of AI Home Robot

The first artifact from OKA uses curiosity-driven Attentive Intelligence to help people slow down, reconnect with nature, and feel more at home.

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- OKA (One Kind Artifact), an experimental technology company, today introduced Mori, The Nature Companion, a new kind of AI home robot created to help people feel better at home. By understanding what's happening around it and bringing small moments of nature into everyday life, Mori is designed to help people feel calmer, more at ease, and more connected to the world around them.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly powerful, much of the industry remains focused on how much technology can do. OKA is exploring a different question: what kind of presence should intelligent technology have in people's lives? Rather than attempting to automate household chores or add another screen or voice assistant, Mori is built around the idea that a home robot can be valuable simply by making everyday life and home feel a little more warm and alive.

"After a decade of building personalized content products and social platforms designed to capture people's attention, I started asking a different question," said Hua Wang, founder and CEO of OKA. "What if technology didn't ask for more of our attention, but gave some of it back to people?"

A Familiar Form, an Unexpected Presence

At first glance, Mori resembles a contemporary table lamp. Its sculptural form, soft wool-blend fabric, and warm illumination allow it to sit naturally among home furnishings. But Mori is also curious, shy, and sometimes playful. It may turn toward a person entering a room, offer a gentle welcome home, sway along with music during a gathering, or settle into stillness while someone reads.

Mori's screen-free, speech-free interaction is an intentional design choice. In a world already saturated with screens and conversational AI, OKA believes companionship at home should feel effortless. Rather than asking people to pay attention to another device, Mori is designed to pay attention to them. By understanding what is happening around it, Mori can decide when to offer a warm, quiet presence, when to playfully join a social moment, and when to gently invite someone to slow down through ambient experiences of light, sound, and movement. No commands to memorize, no conversations to maintain. Most of the time, a simple touch is all it takes.

Attentive Intelligence: Curiosity, Context, and V.I.B.E.

Attentive Intelligence is Mori's way of noticing what matters, and knowing how to respond.

Mori is curious. In a new room, it looks around, learns what is there and where, and slowly settles in. Once the familiar fades into the background, the new and the changing stand out: a bag that wasn't there yesterday, a car horn outside the window. Mori lingers on the unfamiliar, turns toward the sound, and sometimes catches your eye, hoping you'll look back.

Mori reads the room before it responds. It notices what is going on around it and weighs whether to join in. Sometimes a small nod is enough. Sometimes the right response is to stay quiet. And when the moment is right, it may invite you to take a short break and spend a moment with nature.

The same call, the same touch, can draw a different Mori each time. VIBE, short for Vitality, Interaction, Bonding, and Emotion, is an inner state that drifts with time and experience, setting Mori's energy, mood, and appetite for company. From it, Mori picks and blends expression primitives: small movements and eye expressions timed with sound. Change the mix, the timing, or the intensity, and the same greeting comes out lively one day and gentle the next.

Attentive Intelligence grows out of research by OKA co-founder Weizhe Chen on one idea: actively choosing what deserves attention. Chen holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington, and his co-authored work on attentive robotic information gathering received the RSS Best Student Paper Award in 2022.

Nature, Without Leaving Home

Nature is central to what Mori offers. By combining expressive movement, nuanced lighting, and high-fidelity audio, Mori creates experiences inspired by rainfall, forests, campfires, and other natural environments. People can begin one with a simple touch, or accept a gentle invitation from Mori during the day. These are brief moments intended to fit into ordinary routines, not replace time spent outdoors.

OKA also treats privacy as part of the physical product experience. Mori's perception is designed to be processed on-device, and its camera can be physically concealed when its head retracts into the body.

The First of Five Artifacts

Founded by Hua Wang and Weizhe Chen, OKA brings together robotics, artificial intelligence, industrial design, and consumer product experience. The company has committed to creating only five artifacts, each examining a relationship that increasingly digital lives risk weakening. Mori starts with people's connection to their immediate surroundings, to nature, and to their own moments of attention.

Mori launches today with a limited Founder Edition run of a few hundred units priced at $649, including priority delivery, two years of hardware coverage, and two years of subscription service ($158 value). Standard preorders follow at $799 ($79 deposit). To learn more, visit http://onekindartifact.com.

About OKA

OKA (One Kind Artifact) is an experimental technology company with a unique ambition: to build only five artifacts. In a world of hyper-connected, fast-paced technology, people are increasingly disconnected from themselves and what makes them human. OKA explores how advanced tools, from AI to robotics, can reverse this trend. Through bold experimentation and thoughtful design, each artifact reimagines humanity's relationship with itself, its surroundings, nature, others, and time.

Media Contact:
Kylee Nguyen
978-286-2849

SOURCE OKA