Morgan Stanley tests OpenAI-backed household robot: currently just a “fundraising strategy,” not a truly practical tool
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How far are we from large-scale commercial use of humanoid home robots? Morgan Stanley has already personally purchased one for testing.
According to ZF Trading Desk, star Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas recently personally ordered the NEO humanoid household robot launched by 1X Technologies, a company invested in by OpenAI, to test its practicality in a home environment.
1X Technologies officially launched pre-orders for the NEO humanoid robot on October 28. The product is priced at $499 per month for rental or $20,000 to buy outright, with deliveries expected to begin in 2026.
Jonas chose the buy-out option, which includes a 3-year warranty, priority support, and priority delivery services. However, after using it for a period of time, Jonas found that in its initial phase, NEO is not fully autonomous but requires a certain level of remote assistance and remote control, meaning users need to accept human operators virtually "accessing" the home environment through the robot. After in-depth analysis, he ultimately believes that, for now, the NEO household robot is more of a “financing strategy” rather than a truly practical household tool.
NEO: Runs 4 hours on a single charge, born for housework
NEO is designed specifically for the home environment and can perform daily tasks such as dishwashing, cleaning, and laundry.
The robot is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 66 pounds, can lift 154 pounds, is equipped with a 22-degree-of-freedom hand system, and can operate for 4 hours on a single charge. The robot uses 1X's independently developed tendon-driven technology, imitating human tendon and muscle structure, and is covered with a custom 3D lattice polymer soft shell to ensure safety and cushioning.
In terms of artificial intelligence, NEO is equipped with the Redwood vision-language-action model developed by 1X. This is a 160 million parameter transformer model designed for whole-body mobile manipulation tasks. The model runs on the robot’s built-in NVIDIA Jetson Thor GPU, with a computing capacity of 2070 TFLOPS.
1X has also developed a World Model for simulation learning. This model can simulate the responses of various action proposals to environmental changes, helping the robot choose the best action plan when encountering specific situations. The model is trained on thousands of hours of real-world data, covering a wide range of mobile manipulation tasks in home and office environments.
Unlike most humanoid robot companies focused on commercial/enterprise applications, 1X has chosen to specialize in the home deployment market, emphasizing safety and human-machine collaboration. The company is currently testing the latest version, NEO Gamma, in employees’ homes, with plans to test in "hundreds to thousands" of homes by the end of 2025 to collect data for training its internal AI models.
1X faces competition from global humanoid robot developers such as Tesla, Figure, and UBTech. Among them, Figure’s recently launched Figure 03 robot has also shifted toward the home environment, featuring similar safety features, washable soft bodies, and advanced sensors. Jonas pointed out that Chinese competitors could become major players in the robot and humanoid robot market, as seen in the pattern of the electric vehicle industry.
Safety and practicality need improvement; at current stage, it is more of a "financing strategy"
The report notes that the main challenges for 1X include achieving reliable autonomous safety, scalable manufacturing and cost control, regulatory compliance, and market acceptance risks. Jonas emphasized that during the transition from prototype to full commercial deployment, any shortcomings in reliability, safety, or operational readiness could delay market entry or damage customer trust.
In terms of manufacturing scalability, providing advanced humanoid robots at reasonable prices to consumers or businesses requires mastering mass production, stable supply chain management, and cost-efficiency controls. The company also faces scrutiny over safety, privacy, liability, and regulatory compliance.
According to Pitchbook data, 1X has raised $140 million from well-known investors such as EQT Ventures, Samsung NEXT, OpenAI Startup Fund, and Tiger Global. The company recently completed a Series B2 round, with participants including Access Ventures, Soul Ventures, 3cap, and Starbridge Venture Capital.
Jonas believes that the development of humanoid robots is a long-term battle — at this stage (2026), it is more of a “financing strategy” rather than a tool that can truly accomplish effective work.
The report stresses the need to distinguish between the market hype and the reality of humanoid robots. Achieving fully autonomous humanoid robots is a lengthy process, involving years of data collection, AI model training, and iterative improvements in manufacturing techniques. Therefore, around 2026, the main role of humanoid robots may be to attract capital market attention and investment rather than create significant value in practical use, although these two goals may coexist.
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