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.
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.
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.”
In that small, nothing-of-a-moment, I’m reminded what it means to be alive.
Let’s rise together with every issue. ♡
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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