Agility Robotics’ humanoid robotic has its first actual job—at a Spanx manufacturing facility

“Knees get in the way of picking things up,” she defined to Fortune tech reporter Jason Del Rey, declaring that Digit was designed to work in large warehouses, lifting issues up and placing issues down. 

Now, Digit is placing its backward-knees design, ten years within the making, to good use: The droid not too long ago acquired employed at its first actual job—selecting up totes at a Spanx facility in Connecticut and placing them onto conveyors. The work is a part of a multi-year cope with logistics supplier GXO Logistics, and Johnson stated the corporate is already getting month-to-month income from the robot-as-a-service mission. 

Johnson, who has solely been within the CEO position for 4 months, stated that there are about 1.1 million unfilled warehouse jobs within the US that require the repetitive, mundane duties Digit is doing. “Nobody wants these jobs,” she stated, including that repetitively lifting heavy weights results in staff getting damage, and finally quitting their warehouse jobs.  “That’s where the injuries come in. That’s where the turnover comes in,” she stated. Warehouse staff that used to do bodily work at the moment are turning into the managers of the robots, she added: “They need to be upskilled.” 

Agility Robotics, which spun out of analysis at Oregon State College, raised $150 million in a Collection C spherical in April 2024 as the corporate ready to deploy Digit in logistics and warehouse environments. Now that Digit has been launched into the wild of the warehouse, Johnson stated the corporate is engaged on a rollout for its subsequent technology of Digit to return within the fall. Because of a manufacturing facility the corporate not too long ago in-built Salem, Oregon, the corporate will roll out a whole lot of Digit robots, and hundreds are deliberate for the next yr—with an eye fixed in the direction of a purpose of 10,000 to satisfy rising demand. 

But it surely’s not nearly getting the robots to stroll—backward knees and all, Johnson emphasised. As an alternative, it’s concerning the robotic with the ability to step into an operation’s present workflow. “We need to enter a corporate IT infrastructure and make it work for them,” she stated.  

In April 2024, Agility Robotics confirmed that it laid off a “small number” of staff due to “ongoing efforts to structure the company for success”  whereas ramping up manufacturing of Digit. Johnson stated that the corporate is at present elevating capital for an additional spherical of funding down the road. 

However in the mean time, she stated, she is making an attempt to determine one of the best office for the handful of Digit robots at present accessible. “We have a lot of interest from automotive, retail grocers,” she stated. “I’m trying to figure out which direction to go in.”