GXO Logistics lays claim to an industry first as it inks multi-year agreement with Agility Robotics

GXO Logistics and Agility Robotics, creator of the bipedal mobile manipulation robot (MMR) Digit, have signed a multi-year agreement to begin deploying Digit in the former’s logistics operations.

The tie up, which follows a proof-of-concept pilot in late 2023, is pitched as both the industry’s first formal commercial deployment of humanoid robots and first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) deployment of humanoid robots.

“We’re building on the success of last year’s groundbreaking pilot with Agility by deploying fully operational Digit humanoids into a live warehouse environment,” says Adrian Stoch, Chief Automation Officer, GXO.

“Our R&D approach is to partner with developers all over the world to help them build and validate practical use cases that improve the working environment for our employees while optimising operations for our customers.”

“Agility shares this philosophy, and Digit is the perfect addition to work alongside our people in our fulfilment centre. We’re delighted to progress our partnership through this critical milestone.”

GXO is deploying Digit robots and Agility Arc, Agility’s cloud automation platform for deploying and managing Digit fleets.

Digit is a multi-purpose, human centric robot made for logistics work, and designed to work safely in human spaces and help with a variety of repetitive tasks.

Arc is designed to simplify the deployment lifecycle, from facility mapping and workflow definition to operational management and troubleshooting.

In the SPANX facility, Agility’s solutions integrate with existing automation, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).

Expanding on last year’s pilot, Digit robots are assisting with repetitive tasks such as moving totes from cobots and placing them onto conveyors, all orchestrated through Arc.

Under the RaaS agreement, the companies will continue to explore additional use cases and scale Digit usage to meet demand throughout the deployment.

“There will be many firsts in the humanoid robot market in the years to come, but I’m extremely proud of the fact that Agility is the first with actual humanoid robots deployed at a customer site, generating revenue, and solving real-world business problems,” says Peggy Johnson, CEO, Agility Robotics.

“Agility has always been focused on the only metric that matters - delivering value to our customers by putting Digit to work - and this milestone deployment raises the bar for the entire industry.”