What 1X does
1X (website 1x.tech) is an AI robotics company building humanoid robots intended to operate safely alongside people. The company’s flagship consumer direction is NEO, described as a home robot designed to perform chores and learn/improve over time, and supported by an “Expert Mode”/remote-supervision concept for tasks the robot can’t yet do autonomously. 1X also references an earlier industrial-focused line (EVE industrial) and emphasizes that humanoids need to “live and learn alongside” humans to become general-purpose. Strategic positioning-wise, 1X is attempting to move from prototypes and limited deployments toward productized scale by combining (1) robot fleet/data collection, (2) embodied AI training (including its “world model” work), and (3) vertically integrated manufacturing capacity in the U.S. as it prepares early consumer shipments in 2026.
Technical differentiation (as described by 1X) includes its tendon-driven actuation approach for the NEO platform and force-/feedback-oriented “hands” intended to remove hardware ceilings on manipulation. 1X’s product page and technical blog content also describe a stack that uses an on-robot generalist AI model (“Redwood AI”) for learning/repeating tasks and a built-in LLM for language-based interaction, with a voice and mobile app interface. For autonomy training, 1X publicly points to the use of NVIDIA Isaac simulation tooling in its development pipeline, and it has announced a dedicated “1X World Model Lab” to accelerate embodied world-model pretraining.
Business model: NEO is sold as (a) an “Early Access” purchase option (priced as ownership with a 3-year warranty), and (b) a subscription option with ongoing monthly pricing. Both options are framed as an approach to getting robots into homes to grow the learning loop via real-world experience.
As of 2026-08-30, 1X is publicly emphasizing scaling manufacturing (NEO Factory in Hayward, CA commenced full-scale production), institutional/strategic hires (CFO, VP Engineering, SVP People, and a world-model research lead), and iteration on NEO’s consumer form (NEO home robot launch/pre-orders and the NEO Gamma update).