Gifts you can’t put into words? Try a robot. Plus all the latest brand news.

Issue #76

Weekly Exhale

Looking for Christmas gift inspiration? Try NEO, a five-foot-six humanoid for the home, now taking deposits. NEO will live with you, fold laundry, clean the toilet, fetch groceries, and generally ease the chores of domestic life so you can “spend more time together.”

Pre-order today for just $200.

Picture the scene: “Okay, everyone, one last surprise under the tree! Oh wait—what’s that?” Cue the doorbell. “Wow, oh my gosh, kids, it’s NEO!” Mechanical whirring. Two glowing eyes in a beige knit onesie. “That’s right, sweethearts, Marina won’t be coming on Thursdays anymore. We have NEO now!”

The kids stare. Your partner forces a smile. NEO’s head tilts seven degrees. Its hand raises in a wave. A Bluetooth speaker in its pelvis plays Mariah Carey.

It’s real. We can pre-order robots for our homes now.

NEO is the closest thing yet to the Jetsons future we were promised. The promo video, shot partly on 16 mm, has that faded warmth of a 1960s “home of tomorrow” infomercial. A silver-haired couple plays cards while NEO dusts and offers flowers. A man reads while NEO lifts his mug of matcha. A young woman arrives home, arms full, as NEO opens the door.

Smart positioning: NEO isn’t new. It’s always been here, waiting for you. Faced with an uncertain future, NEO is a dream from the past.

Behind that dream is Bernt Øivind Børnich, a long-haired Norwegian who grew up taking apart kitchen gadgets. He invented an actuator that gives NEO its soft, human-like motion. NEO can fold a towel, but also lift seventy kilos, enough to carry your suitcases down the stairs.

It costs $499 a month, or $20,000 outright. Live-in staff for the kind of people who bought a Tesla before anyone knew what one was.

The vision: “safe, compliant humanoids” people actually want at home. Most of the world is built for the human form. That’s a big market. Børnich’s company, 1X, based in Palo Alto with backers including OpenAI, is targeting a $1 billion raise at a $10 billion valuation.

How far off is the dream? NEO won’t make it by Christmas.

When it does arrive, sometime in 2026, it’ll be only half-useful. For tasks it can’t manage, you’ll book a 1X Expert who’ll guide it remotely through a MetaQuest headset.

In an unusually candid move, Børnich calls NEO’s early behaviour “AI-slop”. Imperfect but useful. A reminder that what we dismiss, AI founders turn into gold. Buy NEO today, and you’re joining the 1X research team. Your home becomes the lab. Your life, the data set.

That’s the upside, in a way. People might roll their eyes, but nothing signals status like buying shiny new tech before it makes any sense for anyone outside the lab to own it.

It’s indulgent and yet instantly irresistible.

The Scandinavian design. The soft lines. The retro-futurism. Even its awkwardness tugs at you. It looks both eager to help and desperate to learn. It’s hard not to want to help it along. And who doesn’t want to outsource changing the cat litter?

Of course, 1X probably isn’t in this for the home market. The real play is the data: how humans move, speak, hesitate. The routines of daily life, captured in your hallway, reused in warehouses, offices and battlefields.

For now, NEO is a multi-million-dollar action toy with an Alexa strapped to it. And that’s its genius. It looks harmless, willing and vulnerable enough that we don’t think too far ahead.

Because, whether NEO becomes a member of the family or just a $20,000 Bluetooth speaker that occasionally folds towels, this is the beginning of two species learning to coexist.

It’s started.

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I already have a NEO. He’s nearly thirteen and doesn’t do anything around the house.

Put away the towels? Not a chance. He tosses them. They land wherever. The floor is his wardrobe. Somehow, everything is visible except the one pair of jeans he’ll actually wear.

He forgets everything: keys, homework, mouth guard. His rucksack smells like wet dog.

And like NEO, he moves through the house half-charged, the blue glow of his phone on his face, the hum of YouTube Shorts ever-present. His body’s stronger than mine now, but still awkward.

His scheduler runs at random. He’ll reorganise his gaming setup at midnight, cables everywhere, just as we both need to sleep. His programming occasionally executes with odd precision: The bathroom cabinet is a shrine to Lynx body spray, every variant in alphabetical order.

And of course, I get regular 404 messages for showing affection, attempting humour, or suggesting anything remotely useful.

Training the model? That’s not how this works. Unlike NEO, you can’t use your thumbprint to adjust his preferences around yours. And the truth is, I’m still learning too. No manual. Just effort, error, and love.

That’s not the kind of learning NEO’s built for.

Digital platforms already monetised our worst instincts. What happens when it goes human-shaped? When it watches not just what we scroll or click, but how we live?

There’s a non-zero chance the closer it gets to us, the further we drift from each other.

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It’s Saturday night, and all I want is the sofa and chocolate. But my son has other ideas. He wants to rearrange the shed. I tell myself it’ll take twenty minutes.

It takes three hours.

We move everything—desks, rugs, amps. There’s shouting, bruising, but then it’s done.

He’s proud. Me too. Tying up the last bag of rubbish, he says,

“This has been a good father-bonding thing, yeah?”

I’m tired. I’m irritated.

I’m grateful.

“It has,” I say. “It really has.”

And in that small, nothing of a moment, I realise he’s not my little boy anymore.

The updates are running.

It’s started.

Let’s rise together with every issue. ♡

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Market Moves

Rachel Reeves bets on long term, will she be around to see it? | Financial Times

Claims on UK economy don’t stack up | The Telegraph

Fed cuts interest rates again, flying blind | BBC

The U.S. casino economy | The New York Times

Brand Beat

Nothing more outdated than the 2025 John Lewis Christmas ad | The Guardian

Facebook’s holiday ad yearns for the long-gone social platform | Fast Company

M&S unveils new phased ‘product-first’ Christmas campaign | Marketing Beat

Christmas ad spend to rise £814m, says WARC/AA report | More About Advertising

British Airways’ campaign risks becoming too abstract | The Drum

Facebook: Small connections can have a major impact | lbbonline.com

Why marketers are ignoring Reddit’s growing popularity | Campaign Asia

X ad chief leaves in Musk’s latest shake-up | Financial Times

Key lessons Hollywood can learn from new media | The New York Times

Does Sora 2 confirm the dead internet theory? | The Drum

Chanel appoints new US brand and communications head | Business of Fashion

Me & Em ramps up expansion plans as sales rocket | Retail Week

Adidas CEO credits local strategy for record sales | Retail Dive

WPP’s new boss labels performance unacceptable | Financial Times

Omnicom and IPG confirm $13.5 billion merger, dissolves DDB network | Produ

OnlyFans brings business school training to content creators | Wired

Coco Trucker Girl, champion of gender equality, dies suddenly | New York Post

Norway’s huge wealth fund to reject Musk’s $1tn Tesla pay deal | The Guardian

Etsy’s holiday ads show why the best gifts feel personal | Adweek

Chipotle’s bet on younger consumers begins to unravel | The Wall Street Journal

Lego Christmas ad highlights power of play with Lionel Richie | Campaign Live

Coca-Cola’s 2025 AI holiday ad sparks mixed reactions | Marketing Interactive

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord | Wired

Starting Up

Papier’s founder on hustling to £60m in revenues | Yahoo Finance

Swedish legal AI startup raises €150M, becomes $1.8B unicorn | Silicon Canals

Barefoot Wine revamps marketing | Marketing Dive

Hottest thing in climate tech now trapped | Fast Company

Meadow: stay connected without smartphone distractions | Thingtesting

Tech Tidbits

I tried the new Neo home robot, it got weird quick | The Wall Street Journal

Universal Music and Udio settle AI lawsuit | Universal Music Group

AI’s biggest problem: we can’t stop talking about it | Wired

Debunking AI slop myths: harmful, hype or just meh? | Digiday

Meta’s $27 billion AI compute bet fuels Wall Street frenzy | Fortune

Voice is the next AI interface, says ElevenLabs CEO | YouTube

Venture Vibes

Amazon x OpenAI $38 billion deal | Reuters

How an AI crash happens: key steps and triggers | The Atlantic

What keeps CFOs up at night? | Sifted

Breaking down Sequoia’s new funds | The Week In Startups

Coffee commotion puts view of VC under scrutiny | Financial Times

Design Driven

Robbie Williams’ new chair for introverts | Wallpaper

Figma Weave delivers next-generation AI-native design creation | Figma

How GLP-1s are rewriting the food advertising playbook | Creative Review

Iconic photobook: Teenagers in their bedrooms | It’s Nice That

Nike and Palace transform Victorian bathhouse into skatepark | Dezeen

How an SNL star designed the Crosby, Stills and Nash logo | Vice

Happiness

AI fuels a grim new twist in Dunning-Kruger effect | Futurism

I let ChatGPT coach me through marathon training | The Wall Street Journal

Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? | Vogue

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