Watch: 1X NEO and Star Chef Amaury Guichon Collaborate on a Surprising ''Tech'' Cake

Just days after its contentious $20,000 pre-order launch, 1X is back in the feed with a decidedly sweeter piece of content: a collaboration with celebrity pastry chef Amaury Guichon.

The new video, posted to Guichon's popular Instagram account and YouTube, shows the French-Swiss chocolatier and the NEO humanoid "teaming up" in a kitchen to create one of Guichon's signature elaborate desserts.

The final "cake" is a hyper-realistic replica of a "1X TECH" shipping box. When opened, it reveals edible "foam peanuts"—which are actually homemade marshmallows—and a set of shockingly realistic "metal" tools, including nuts, bolts, and a wrench, all crafted from edible materials.

Throughout the video, NEO is portrayed as a helpful assistant, working alongside Guichon in a playful, team-like manner. The collaboration aims to showcase the robot's potential in a dynamic, unstructured environment like a kitchen. It highlights the potential of its dexterous hands and its "passively safe," tendon-driven design operating in close proximity to a person.

A photo of the collaboration was shared by 1X's VP of design, product, and marketing, who tweets as @radbackwards. "We’ve only ever worked with creators that love NEO as much as we do," the post reads, adding: "Amaury is both one of our earliest customers and one of our favorite creators on earth… It’s all so damn beautiful."

The reveal that Guichon, a high-profile creator, is one of the robot's "earliest customers" is notable, reframing the collaboration as more than just a one-off marketing partnership.

This lighthearted video lands in the middle of a heated industry debate about 1X's strategy. Critics, including Marques Brownlee, have pointed to the robot's reliance on human teleoperation ("Expert Mode") as "selling the dream". 1X, meanwhile, has consistently argued this human-in-the-loop system is the necessary and transparent first step to gather the real-world data needed for true autonomy.

While the new video doesn't specify whether NEO is operating autonomously or via "Expert Mode," it serves as a powerful piece of marketing for 1X's ultimate vision: a capable "humanoid companion" safe enough to one day collaborate in the home.

Watch the video below: