2023 was the year of humanoids, and it all started thanks to Agility Robotics. Its Digit humanoid stole the show at ProMat, where it demonstrated its ability to pick up totes from a shelf, walk over to a conveyor, and place the totes onto the conveyor.

At the time, Agility said the demo was based on a real customer use case. Later in 2023, Agility announced pilots with two major customers: Amazon and GXO Logistics, which claims to be the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider. Digit is 5 ft., 9 in. (175 cm) tall, weighs 143 lb. (64.8 kg), and can carry up to 35 lb. (15.8 kg).

In October, Amazon and Agility announced that Amazon was testing Digit at its robotics research and development facility outside of Seattle. The initial use of Digit is to help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them.

In December 2023, GXO announced that Digit was being tested on logistics tasks at a SPANX facility in Georgia. It moved totes filled with products off of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and onto a conveyor. Agility said at the time that Digit will communicate with the AMR fleet manager in the future.

Adrian Stoch, GXO’s chief automation officer, said Digit’s potential flexibility gives it a nod over other types of robots, including AMRs with top modules. “The real application here is end-to-end product flow throughout the warehouse,” he said. “Until now, solutions have been mostly discrete applications: goods-to-person, sorters, wearable tech. Solving discrete problems in one part of the puzzle.”

For companies operating fulfillment centers with a wide product mix or fluctuating demand, the potential flexibility of humanoids could help fill the ongoing labor crisis.

We’ve never seen a humanoid perform real tasks in a commercial setting, until now. Humanoids have long been relegated to research labs, but the goalposts began to seismically shift in 2023. Congratulations to Agility Robotics for winning the inaugural Robot of the Year Award.

Explore the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards 2024.