Elon Musk doubled down on Tesla Inc.’s embrace of artificial intelligence after a week of intensifying scrutiny of the advanced driver-assistance features sold by the electric-vehicle maker.

Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said Tesla would build a robot in a human form that could perform repetitive tasks, with a prototype likely to be ready next year. It would draw on some of the technology Tesla has developed for vehicles, he said Thursday during an event in Palo Alto, Calif., around artificial intelligence, or technology designed to mimic the way humans think.

Tesla, which has delivered far fewer vehicles than more established rivals, has risen to become the world’s most valuable car maker as investors bet in part on the potential of its technology.

“Tesla is much more than an electric-car company,” Mr. Musk said.

The deployment of such robots could fundamentally change the economy, potentially alleviating labor shortages, he said. “In the future, physical work will be a choice,” Mr. Musk said, adding that long-term, such a robot could make it necessary to provide a universal basic income, or a stipend to people without strings attached.