Until now, the humanoid robotics industry has been all promises and pilots. Although important to the eventual development of new technology, these programs involve a small number of robots and often do not graduate into anything more substantial. On Thursday, however, Agility announced that it had struck a formal deal following a successful pilot with logistics giant GXO.
Digit’s first job will be moving product into a Georgia Spanx factory — which is definitely not a euphemism. Neither party has revealed exactly how many of the bipedal robots will be pulling boxes from cobots and placing them on conveyor belts, which likely means the figure is still on the small side. When we’re talking tens or hundreds of thousands, the parties involved would usually be willing to share that information.
Systems are leased as part of a RaaS (robot as a service) model, rather than purchased outright. This allows the customer to defer the huge initial cost of such a complex system while still having access to support and software updates.
GXO began piloting Digit robots last year. The logistics company also recently announced a pilot agreement with one of Agility’s biggest competitors, Apptronik. It is not clear how one will affect the other.
Peggy Johnson, who took over as Agility’s CEO in March, emphasized the company’s focus on ROI—a notable difference in a category where results are still largely theoretical.
“There will be many firsts in the humanoid robot market in the coming years, but I’m extremely proud that Agility is the first with truly humanoid robots deployed on a customer site, generating revenue and solving real-world business problems,” he said. Johnson. “Agility has always been focused on the only metric that matters — delivering value to our customers by enabling Digit — and this milestone development raises the bar for the entire industry.”
Oregon-based Agility has been ahead of the rest of the market when it comes to growth and development, so it’s no surprise to see the company head to another major milestone. Of course, this is still very early days for the industry and no clear market leader has emerged.
Amazon piloted Agility systems in its own warehouses last October, but neither company has made an official announcement about next steps.
