From what I can tell, Canon is that the first true AI emerged from a specific combination of hardware and software, some of which may have been developmental or even experimental, and may have even been intentional.
The first was, however, an isolated case for some time until the examt circumstances to trigger AI development in that specific setup were determined. From there, equivalent setups with less expensive hardware were discovered and eventually commodified.
Until the Singularity, no-one actually understood why the specific combinations worked to create sapience, instead of simple sentience or even just basic responsiveness, and the new knowledge may now be being applied to human sapience.
As for robotics, I imagine that the whole planet was just a few years ahead of us with companies like Boston Dynamics beginning to commercialise products rather than still developing them as is the case in our reality.
In turn one of the AI research teams probably got ahold of one, rigged an interface for their pet mind, and quickly determined that the rapid learning and intuitive reasoning of the AI combined incredibly well with the dynamic environmental awareness of the robot body.
After that, well, people have wanted robot butlers for centuries, and now here they were; potentially at least. The initial commercial success was probably limited because the AIs couldn’t not have personality and the type of person who wants to be the first to own a mechanical slave for the sake of showing off is seldom the type to tolerate backtalk from their “property”…
Still, by the time the idea of the companion matching service gained traction, the cost of the hardware had come down to mass-market band, and the idea of having an AI as a sort of pseudo-pet, rather than a disappointingly wilful minion, became popular.
Which is how Marten and Pintsize came to be associated, just a little while before the strip starts…