Until now, the humanoid robotics industry has been all about promises and trials. While important for the eventual adoption of new technology, these programs often only involve a handful of robots and don't amount to anything more meaningful. But on Thursday, Agility announced that it had signed a formal contract with logistics giant GXO after successful trials.
Digit's first job will be hauling packages at a Spanx factory in Georgia, which is no euphemism. Neither side will say exactly how many of the bipedal robots will be taking boxes from the cobots and putting them on the conveyor belt, meaning the numbers are probably still on the low side. When you're talking tens or hundreds of thousands, the parties involved are usually happy to share that information.
Rather than being purchased outright, the systems are leased as part of a RaaS (Robots as a Service) model, allowing clients to defer the significant upfront costs of complex systems while still receiving access to support and software updates.
GXO began testing its Digit robots last year. The logistics company also recently announced a pilot agreement with Apptronik, one of Agility's biggest rivals. It's unclear what impact the two will have.
Peggy Johnson, who became Agility's CEO in March, emphasized the company's focus on ROI — a big difference in a field where results are still largely theoretical.
“There will be many firsts in the humanoid robotics market over the next few years, but I'm extremely proud of the fact that Agility is the first company to actually deploy humanoid robots in customer sites, generating revenue and solving real business problems,” said Johnson. “Agility has always been focused on the one metric that matters – leveraging Digit to deliver value to our customers. This groundbreaking deployment raises the bar across the industry.”
Oregon-based Agility has been ahead of others in the market in terms of development and adoption, so it's not surprising that the company was the first to hit another major milestone. Of course, this is still early days for the industry, and no clear market leader has emerged.
Amazon began testing the Agility system in its own warehouses in October, but neither company has made any formal announcements about next steps.