Agility and GXO have been collaborating since 2023. Source: GXO Logistics
Agility Robotics and GXO Logistics today said they are expanding their partnership to deploy Agility’s Digit humanoid robot in GXO sites in North Carolina and Tennessee.
“GXO was the first customer to put Digit to work in live operations under a commercial agreement, and expanding to additional sites is the clearest signal that the value is real,” stated Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility. “Customers are moving beyond asking whether humanoid robots can work to deciding where they can scale them. Years of experience performing real work in GXO’s operations have shaped how we build, deploy and support Digit, and we’re focused on disciplined execution as we grow this partnership.”
Founded in 2015, Agility Robotics said it has more than 65,000 hours of real-world operation working with industry safety standards. The Salem, Ore.-based company recently got U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approval for its planned merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Churchill Capital Corp. XI as it prepares to go public.
In 2024, Digit earned Agility the inaugural RBR50 Robot of the Year award for being one of the first humanoids to enter commercial trials. It received 2026 honors for moving more than 100,000 totes for GXO last year. This month, the company chose Nyobolt for fast charging, expanded its partnership with NVIDIA, and said it plans to deploy Digit at an AGCO factory for agricultural equipment in 2027.
GXO and Agility continue collaboration
Spun out of XPO Inc. in 2021, GXO Logistics claimed that it is “the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider.” The third-party logistics provider (3PL) has more than 150,000 employees across over 1,000 facilities, totaling more than 200 million sq. ft. (18.5 million sq. m). The Greenwich, Conn.-based company last month partnered with Exotec to automate fulfillment for Guess in the Netherlands, and like Agility, its executives participated in keynote panels last week’s RoboBusiness event.
GXO and Agility first deployed Digit in late 2023 in at a facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. The companies asserted that it was the industry’s first commercial deployment of humanoid robots in live operations and the first robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) agreement for humanoid robots.
Since then, Digit has moved more than 100,000 totes at the Flowery Branch facility, demonstrating its ability to perform repetitive material handling tasks reliably in an active logistics environment. The robot uses the Agility Arc cloud-based fleet management and integration platform. It has worked alongside existing automation to move totes and place them onto conveyors.
“Innovation is most powerful when it delivers practical solutions that create value for our customers and our people,” said GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher. “Our partnership with Agility Robotics has been defined by a shared commitment to turning emerging technologies into real-world operational advantage. Together, we’ve helped pioneer the use of humanoid robotics in the warehouse and this expansion reflects our confidence in the technology’s ability to create measurable value for our customers and a better working environment for our teams.”
Digit will move from handling bins to more applications. Source: Agility
Submit your innovation now!GXO Logistics has tested other humanoids
GXO has also tested humanoid robots including Apollo from Apptronik and Reflex from Reflex Robotics. In the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August, Kelleher acknowledged that it had not yet deployed humanoids in production, nor had they produced a return on investment (ROI).
“We’ve done 45 pilots on humanoids so far. We have an additional pilot launching in Europe very shortly,” he said at the time. “We have not achieved ROI on humanoids yet. I think we are a couple of years away from that, but we’re seeing such great progress with our partners around the efficacy of that technology and the application opportunities that it has in the warehouse environment.”
GXO did not say how much it is investing in the Digit expansion or when and if it expects ROI. The Robot Report has reached out and will share any additional comment or clarification.
Partners plan to deploy Digit to more U.S. sites
Under the expanded agreement, Digit will support e-commerce fulfillment at GXO sites in Statesville, Tenn., and Lebanon, Ind. The companies said they expect to begin deployments of Digit 4 in in early 2027.
Digit 5, which Agility unveiled last month, is designed with new legs, to operate safely near people, and to address a wider range of industrial workflows. GXO said it will migrate to Digit 5 when it becomes commercially available.
“The expansion reflects GXO’s long-standing approach to advancing warehouse automation through practical implementation at scale,” said GXO. “As an industry leader in advanced automation and physical AI, GXO partners with leading technology developers to test, refine and deploy emerging solutions in live operating environments. The expanded partnership underscores GXO’s and Agility’s shared commitment to accelerating innovation through real-world application and continuous learning.”
Agility also noted that it has invested in infrastructure to manufacture, deploy, and support humanoid robots at scale, including its 70,000 sq. ft. (6,503.2 sq. m) RoboFab facility to manufacture up to 10,000 robots per year. The company has also expanded software and service capabilities, as well as announced plans for a new 50,000 sq. ft. (4,645 sq. m) facility in Pittsburgh to support commercial deployments.
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