Digit moved bins at a GXO Logistics facility in a RaaS mannequin. Supply: Agility Robotics
Agility Robotics Inc. is continuous to be a pioneer in commercializing humanoid robots. The corporate as we speak mentioned it has signed an settlement with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc., or TMMC, to deploy its Digit robotic in its amenities after a profitable year-long pilot.
“Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada has lengthy been a frontrunner in automotive manufacturing innovation,”
said Tim Hollander, president of TMMC. “After evaluating plenty of robots, we’re excited to deploy Digit to enhance the group member expertise and additional enhance operational effectivity in our manufacturing amenities.”
TMMC is Toyota Motor Corp.’s largest manufacturing operation exterior of Japan, with car meeting crops in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario. The unit has assembled autos since 1988, together with greater than 535,000 in 2025, and it employs over 8,500 individuals. The firm final month mentioned it would construct its sixth era RAV4 at TMMC’s crops, investing $1.1 billion.
Toyota to seek for extra humanoid use instances
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada’s pilot concerned three Digits and included improvement, proof-of-technology, and onsite phases. The corporate mentioned it plans to deploy seven extra humanoids to load and unload totes from an automatic tugger, with extra robots to return if they’re profitable.
Along with the work that Digit is already doing, Agility and TMMC mentioned they are going to assess extra use instances for robots and AI in assist of staff in manufacturing, provide chain, and logistics operations. The businesses plan to discover how automating some extraordinarily repetitive and bodily taxing duties generally discovered on automotive manufacturing strains may scale back pressure and enhance security for workers, liberating them to do extra value-added work within the manufacturing facility.
Toyota joins a rising variety of Fortune 500 firms deploying Agility’s humanoids all over the world, together with GXO Logistics, which claims to be the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics supplier; movement know-how firm Schaeffler; and e-commerce big Amazon.
In 2024, GXO was the first firm to deploy Digit commercially at a Spanx facility in Georgia below a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) mannequin. Agility Robotics acquired a 2025 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award for the milestone.
“Toyota is without doubt one of the premier firms on the earth, one with a protracted historical past of innovation and success,
so it’s a privilege to hitch forces to combine humanoid robotic options like Digit into automotive
manufacturing,” mentioned Peggy Johnson, Agility Robotics’ CEO. “I sit up for persevering with our work with
Toyota to determine all of the ways in which Digit might help the staff working at their manufacturing amenities.”
“With our subsequent era of Digit, we would be the first firm to ship the primary cooperatively protected
humanoid robotic to work alongside individuals, permitting firms like Toyota to scale their use of
humanoids nicely past what is feasible as we speak,” she added.
Agility Robotics designs for straightforward integration
With international labor shortages, robots may do quite a lot of monotonous, process-oriented duties which are usually troublesome for producers to fill and hold stuffed, famous Agility Robotics. The firm‘s choices embody Digit, which it described as a “general-purpose” humanoid, and Agility Arc, a cloud-based platform for deploying and managing fleets of the robots.
Digit is designed to combine simply into amenities with out the necessity for pricey retrofits or overhauls, mentioned Agility. It additionally asserted that its system can frequently study duties and adapt to new workflows, utilizing AI to speed up its industrial capabilities.
Salem, Ore.-based Agility Robotics has workplaces in Pittsburgh and Palo Alto, Calif. Digit can be working in a Mercado Libre warehouse in San Antonio, Texas.
Different humanoid robots in latest proofs of idea or industrial trials embody:
Editor’s observe: Pras Velagapudi, chief know-how officer of Agility Robotics, will take part in a panel on the “State of Humanoids” on the 2026 Robotics Summit & Expo, which shall be on Might 27 and 28 in Boston. Registration is now open.
