A 4-Foot Robot From China Is Becoming the World's Newest Influencer
The Unitree G1 costs as little as $13,500, talks via AI, and has already racked up 4 billion social media views. Here is who is making money from it and what the new US ban means for them.
Key points
- The Unitree G1, a humanoid robot made by Chinese company Unitree, retails from $13,500 before tariffs and has been shipped to real customers at an average price under $25,000.
- Unitree shipped 5,511 humanoid robots in 2025, with 43 percent of sales going to buyers outside China.
- Edward Warchocki, a G1 robot in Poland, has accumulated over 1 million followers and 4 billion views across social media platforms.
- Miami-based Jake Cooperstein earns $800 to $1,200 per hour bringing his G1 robot, the Brickell Clanker, to parties and corporate events.
- In July 2025, the US Federal Communications Commission, the federal body that approves consumer electronics for use in America, announced a ban on new Chinese-made humanoid robots.
You have almost certainly seen one of these robots without knowing what you were looking at.
A cowboy-hat-wearing robot flirting with strangers in Austin. A breakdancing robot celebrating with New York Knicks fans. A robot changing football jerseys at World Cup after-parties in Miami. Different names, different social media accounts, one machine: the Unitree G1, a humanoid robot about the size of a ten-year-old child, made by a Chinese company that has become the unlikely leader of a very strange new industry.
So what is this robot, exactly?
The Unitree G1 stands roughly four feet tall, with an aluminium body and a hollowed-out face ringed with blue light. On its own it is impressive but silent. The owners who have turned it into a social media star connect it to a large language model, the same type of AI software that powers chatbots like ChatGPT, so it can hold live conversations with strangers.
Bartosz Idzik, a software developer in Poland, did exactly that with his G1. He and his business partner Radosław Grzelaczyk bought the robot six months ago and named it Edward Warchocki. The early outings were rough: Edward could not speak, and people were visibly frightened. Adding conversational AI flipped the reaction entirely.
"When he started to talk, people loved him," Idzik says. "Without talking, it's just a 40-kilogram machine."
Edward has since visited the Polish parliament, hiked mountains, been jokingly arrested by police, and gone viral after a video showed it chasing wild boars in Warsaw carrying a backpack and a Rolex.
Who is making money, and how much?
Jake Cooperstein, 24, saw Edward's story and bought his own G1 in January. Unsatisfied with the basic version, he paid $66,000 for the educational variant that allows full modifications, naming it the Brickell Clanker after his Miami neighbourhood.
| Version | Base price (before tariffs) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| G1 basic | $13,500 | Limited modification rights |
| G1 via US distributor | ~$19,000 | Includes import costs |
| G1 educational (U5) | $66,000 | Full parts, customisable |
| R1 (newer model) | Roughly one-third of G1 base | Lighter, faster |
Cooperstein now charges $800 to $1,200 an hour to bring the Brickell Clanker to influencer parties and corporate events. That is real money for what amounts, in his own description, to blending into the crowd while remotely controlling the robot's movements with a handheld controller.
Both Cooperstein and Idzik are candid about the limits. Neither trusts the G1 to navigate crowds safely on its own, so a human is operating it most of the time. The conversation is AI-generated. The viral moments are deliberate business decisions.
Our 4 August story on Ati Robotics showed how the FCC ban has already reshuffled who benefits from American demand for humanoid hardware. Cooperstein is handling the same uncertainty from the buyer's side.
What does the US ban mean for buyers?
Models that already cleared regulatory approval, including the G1 and the newer R1, are currently still permitted. When Unitree releases its next generation, American buyers won't be able to purchase it. Cooperstein says he doesn't yet know whether he'll keep buying Unitree hardware. Unitree did not respond to a request for comment.
For Idzik in Poland, the picture is cleaner. His company MERA Robotics now runs a fleet of 20 G1 robots across Poland, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, each built around Edward's AI personality.
Unitree, expected to list on the Chinese stock market within weeks, reported that more than half its 2025 revenue came from actual customer deliveries rather than lab contracts. The company turned a profit for the first time last year.
What does this actually mean for you?
If a robot approaches you at an event, a human nearby is almost certainly holding a controller. The people making real money from humanoid robots right now are doing it through entertainment, not automation. Charging $800 to $1,200 an hour to wow a crowd is a genuine income stream. Replacing a factory worker or a cleaner is still a largely unsolved problem.
Start there, not with the hype.
