Agility Robotics plans to begin deploying its Digit v5 humanoid robot to early customers in December, first reported by Forbes. The robot is designed to work beside people without traditional safety fencing, a condition Agility says is central to larger deployments because barriers consume floor space and can rule out facilities that lack room.
Daniel Diez, Agility’s chief business officer, says the main barrier to large-scale deployment is not speed, agility, battery capacity or dexterity. Digit v5 will use a new algorithm, cameras and sensors to detect people, understand what it sees and react without dropping a payload or falling over.
Better battery life and quick charging are intended to support 20-hour working days, and customers want one robot to cover a three-shift operation, Diez says. An ISO flange, a standardized connector at the end of the arms, will let Digit use the existing catalog of end effectors; Agility has already demonstrated self-swapping and eventually wants the robot to change tools itself.
The immediate target is bulk material handling in factories and warehouses, where Agility says labor gaps are most acute across the US, Europe, Korea and Japan. Tool changes are also intended to extend Digit into kitting and sorting.
Safety fencing takes floor space, disrupts workflows and has prevented deals at facilities that lack room. Removing it, Diez says, would let people walk by robot areas and integrate machines more fully into factories and warehouses, potentially opening retail and pharmaceutical work.
Speed is not necessarily the benchmark: at Schaeffler’s South Carolina plant, Digit v4 already outpaces an industrial washer’s ability to ingest greasy machine parts. Diez instead frames the test as processing more work than the alternative at below a human’s fully burdened cost, if that person can be found.
Agility is going public through a $2.5 billion merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI under ticker AGLT. The company says it has roughly $300 million in booked revenue across some 1,000 robots and nine customer sites, including Schaeffler, GXO, Toyota and Mercado Libre. The public launch of Digit v5 will show whether the next version can support and grow that figure while humanoids mix with people.