We are in the paper.
Windsor Express (the title that covers Ascot, Windsor and Eton) ran Jimmy on Ascot High Street this week. Reporter Anaka Nair went out, took the pictures, and published the gallery on 3 September 2026. If you grew up in Sunningdale, went to Charters, or still get your hair cut on Ascot High Street, that is not a small thing. That is the local paper putting a four-foot humanoid, and the company behind him, on Ascot High Street, a few minutes from Chris Drinkwater's home in Sunningdale.
Read their piece first. They earned it: Humanoid robot Jimmy gets up close and personal on Ascot High Street. Then come back here. This is the bit we get to say out loud.
We are proud of this.
As seen in
A robot on the high street near home
Chris left Llanelli with Jimmy on Wednesday and took him home to Sunningdale. Not to a trade stand. Not to a conference lanyard. Home, then out: Ascot Racecourse, Windsor town centre, the pedestrian crossing on Ascot High Street, Gould Barbers, and Charters School, the secondary he attended when a robot on the pavement would have sounded like a film.
Jimmy waved. He peered in shop windows. People stopped. Cars slowed. Phones came out. More than once someone thought he was a child in a mask, because he is four foot tall and he was wearing a T-shirt, and that is still how a British high street processes a humanoid when one actually turns up.
That is the photograph worth having. Not a render. Not a LinkedIn carousel. Jimmy, on Ascot High Street, with the people who still live there.
New Era AI launched in 2025. We are based in Llanelli, working with ordinary UK businesses on the unglamorous stuff: missed calls, follow-up that dies in an inbox, work that only lives in one person's head. And this week a Berkshire paper decided the story of a co-founder taking his robot home to Sunningdale was worth a gallery. We are going to enjoy that.
The full-circle bit, which still feels slightly unreal
Chris has said this in print, so we will not dance around it. He was not a star at school. He does not have a GCSE in IT. His parents used to dread electrical Christmas presents because he would have the screwdriver out before the wrapping was in the bin. He learned the job by doing the job: cybersecurity, automation, IT, then the consultancy, then a master's in AI and robotics while running the company.
Standing outside Charters with Jimmy is the kind of sentence you write and then have to read twice. The kid from Sunningdale who thought he was going nowhere is in the local paper with a humanoid robot and a business that has his name on it. That is the story Windsor Express actually ran. We are glad they did, because it is true, and because it is the kind of true that people in Sunningdale, Ascot and Windsor will recognise.
His youngest thinks it is brilliant that dad has a robot. The dog was unbothered. The rest of the family took it in the stride you take when Chris has already taken half the house apart once. Jimmy has been with us about two months. In that time Chris reverse-engineered enough of him to hook camera, microphone, speaker and motors through a laptop, so Jimmy can see a person, talk about what is in front of him, and hold a conversation that does not sound like a toy. The Express noticed the voice. So did the high street. People stepped in instead of stepping back.
Why this coverage matters to us
Local papers do not owe a Wales consultancy a write-up. When they give you one, you say thank you, you share the link, and you let the town have the moment.
Jimmy is not for sale. We are not a robot shop. Almost no SME needs a humanoid on the shop floor. What they do need is a reason to stop and talk, and Jimmy is very good at that. On Wednesday he was good at it where Chris is from: Sunningdale, then Ascot High Street. Windsor Express catching that (the school, the racecourse, the barber, the family, the chaos on the road) is the difference between a stunt and a hometown story. They ran the hometown story. That is the win.
If you saw him, if you took a picture, if you were the person who thought he was a kid in a mask: hello. You were part of the day the paper wrote up. Come and say so. Jimmy's page is the honest spec. Chris's profile is the person who wired him. If the conversation you actually want is about the work (phones, follow-up, the process stuck in someone's head), book an assessment and we will have that one too.
We will keep taking Jimmy to stands, classrooms, and the occasional high street. This week he made Windsor Express. We are celebrating that. A Llanelli company, a Sunningdale childhood, a four-foot robot on Ascot High Street, and a local title that put it in print.
That is a good Thursday.