Humanoid Hype Confirms Peak AI-Euphoria?
This article is part of an AI-series:
The NEO home robot is going viral. Here are my initial thoughts from engineering and product owner -lens.
The Good
Respect to the product team as they overcame tech hurdles in actuator-, sensing- and comms systems, including safety/compliance. It’s clunky and slow at best now, but with tech advances it might get smoother over a decade (or two). Yet, the tech advance -argument is not universal nor predictable, so it’s potentially wishful thinking.
The Bad
Product doesn‘t (yet) solve real problems, but might create new ones in busy households. Looking through the Kano-categories, I don‘t see the basic needs fulfilled for retail. Reading out spice labels is a lame use case when one could simply smell or taste. Some performance-exciters might work in a controlled environment (eg. elderly care home) though. There is a growing solution space for empowering the elderly to feel autonomous andconfident in managing their daily life, but I don’t think this robot is entering that space anytime soon.
The Ugly
The robot looks hideous. Sorry, it really does. For me, this doesn’t look like a production ready product. It just feels “off”. Maybe it’s a panic launch to appease early investors?
Summary
Humanoid robots going viral scream peak euphoria. I take it to be yet another supporting datapoint in my #AIBaseCase: the AI bubble is the biggest in tech history, and when it bursts in 2026–27, most firms will quietly unwind their AI projects and bring back the team coaches they replaced.
Do humanoid robots warrant to be included? Maybe. When the AI hype stalls, the home robot hype may too.
Disclaimer: Despite the criticism, I respect and support all technical milestones that aim to help humanity.
