Robots have lived among us for years, from our factory assembly lines to the autonomous vehicles sorting our parcels. Now, with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, our robot companions are taking on even more sophisticated tasks — even heart surgery.

In September, a cardiac team at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh achieved a historic milestone by performing the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant on a 16-year-old boy who was facing end-stage heart failure.