Humanoid Robots Are Coming Home: Figure and 1X Ramp Up Production

The Humanoid Robot Era Is No Longer Science Fiction

If you’ve been half-expecting a robot butler to show up at your door someday, that day is getting closer — fast. Two of the most closely watched companies in the humanoid robotics space, Figure AI and 1X Technologies, are each making serious moves: one ramping up factory production, the other launching a consumer-ready household robot you can actually pre-order. Together, these developments signal that humanoid robots are crossing from research labs into the real world at a pace few anticipated just a couple of years ago.

Key Developments: What’s Actually Happening

Figure and 1X Scale Up Manufacturing

According to IEEE Spectrum, both Figure AI and 1X Technologies have begun meaningfully ramping up humanoid robot production. This isn’t just about building a handful of prototypes anymore — these companies are investing in manufacturing processes that are designed to produce robots at scale. Figure AI, backed by significant investment from the likes of Microsoft and OpenAI, has been iterating on its Figure 01 and Figure 02 platforms, while 1X has been quietly building toward a consumer moment.

1X Launches NEO for the Home

In November 2025, 1X Technologies made a landmark announcement: the launch of NEO, its humanoid household robot, complete with a pre-order option open to the general public. This is a significant milestone. Most humanoid robots to date have been aimed at industrial or warehouse settings. NEO is explicitly designed for the home — think of it as a robot that could help with everyday domestic tasks rather than welding car parts on an assembly line.

“NEO is designed to be a helpful, safe presence in the home — capable of learning and adapting to the people it lives with.”
— 1X Technologies, via Mashable

The pre-order launch suggests 1X is confident enough in NEO’s readiness to start gauging real consumer demand, a bold move in a market that has historically been more concept than product.

Technical Background: What Makes These Robots Tick

Building a humanoid robot is, to put it mildly, one of the hardest engineering challenges in existence. Unlike a robotic arm that only does one thing on a factory floor, a humanoid robot needs to navigate unpredictable environments — your cluttered living room, a staircase, a kitchen counter — while performing dexterous tasks with hands that can grip a coffee mug without crushing it.

Both Figure and 1X are leaning heavily on end-to-end AI (Artificial Intelligence) learning, where the robot is trained through massive amounts of demonstration data and reinforcement learning rather than being manually programmed for each task. 1X, in particular, has emphasized a data-driven approach, collecting real-world interaction data to train NEO’s behaviors. Figure has partnered with OpenAI to integrate conversational AI, allowing its robots to receive and reason about natural language instructions — essentially letting you tell the robot what you need in plain English.

On the hardware side, both companies use electric actuators rather than hydraulic systems, making the robots quieter, safer around humans, and easier to maintain. Battery life and recharging remain ongoing challenges, as does the cost of the sensors — particularly LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and depth cameras — needed for reliable spatial awareness.

Comparing the Two Approaches

Feature	Figure AI	1X Technologies (NEO)
Primary Market	Industrial / Commercial	Consumer Household
Current Stage	Production Scale-Up	Pre-Order Launch
AI Integration	OpenAI partnership (conversational AI)	In-house data-driven learning
Robot Models	Figure 01, Figure 02	NEO
Notable Backers	Microsoft, OpenAI, BMW	Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), EQT Ventures

Global Implications: Why This Matters Beyond the Tech World

The simultaneous scaling of humanoid robot production by multiple companies isn’t just a tech story — it’s an economic and social one. Analysts have long argued that humanoid robots could address labor shortages in aging economies like Japan, South Korea, and parts of Europe. A home robot like NEO could also become a lifeline for elderly people living independently, assisting with tasks that currently require human caregivers.

From a manufacturing standpoint, the race to scale production is intensifying competition not just between robotics firms, but between countries. China has its own aggressive humanoid robot initiatives, with companies like Unitree Robotics and UBTECH making rapid progress. The U.S. and Norway (where 1X is headquartered) are effectively in a global race to define what the next generation of intelligent machines looks like — and who builds them.

There are, of course, legitimate questions about safety, data privacy (a home robot sees and hears everything), and the economic displacement of workers in certain sectors. These conversations are just beginning, and regulators in the EU (European Union), U.S., and elsewhere are watching closely.

Conclusion and Outlook

The humanoid robot industry has officially moved from “impressive demo” to “actual product you can buy.” With Figure AI scaling its manufacturing pipeline and 1X opening NEO pre-orders to everyday consumers, 2025–2026 is shaping up as the moment humanoid robots begin their transition from curiosity to utility. The technical hurdles are real, the price points will need to come down significantly for mass adoption, and societal questions remain unanswered. But the momentum is undeniable. Keep an eye on how quickly pre-orders fill for NEO — that consumer signal will tell us a great deal about whether the world is truly ready to welcome a robot into the home.

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※ Price data via yfinance (may include after-hours). Retrieved: 2026-05-14 06:03 UTC

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Sources (2 articles)

• [IEEE Spectrum] Video Friday: Figure, 1X Ramp Up Humanoid Robot Production
• [Google News] 1X has launched NEO, a humanoid household robot. Here’s how to preorder. – Mashable

※ This article synthesizes and analyzes the above sources. Generated: 2026-05-14 06:03