Agility is taking its humanoid robot business public after focusing on a practical challenge: moving heavy loads through industrial facilities. Its Digit robots are already working for customers, but the company’s next steps depend on whether its newer model can meet performance targets and attract more buyers.
A public listing built around industrial work
The company will become publicly traded through a reverse merger involving a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The transaction is expected to bring in $465 million from retail investors and private funding.
Agility was spun out of Oregon State University in 2015 by researchers working on safe two-legged walking. While other humanoid robots may draw attention with acrobatics, CEO Peggy Johnson says Agility has concentrated on repetitive manual jobs that are difficult to staff.
The company has placed Digit robots with nine customers, including Schaeffler, GXO, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, and Mercado Libre. At a GXO logistics facility, the robots have moved more than 100,000 totes. That field experience gives Agility a concrete base as it seeks to expand.
Revenue remains small beside the losses
Agility’s robots are doing paid work, but the business is still at an early stage. The company reported $174,000 in revenue in the first six months of 2026, mostly from related parties, while losing $362 million over the same period.
The new capital gives Agility resources to keep developing and deploying its product. Johnson said the proceeds would meet the company’s current needs, but she did not say they would make the business self-sustaining. That leaves execution important: the company needs to turn its funding and customer interest into wider deployment.
Agility says it has $300 million in planned contracts from 30 customers for Digit 5, its next-generation robot. Those agreements depend on the robot meeting targets for throughput, uptime, and placement accuracy. The company has not disclosed the targets or identified the customers.
Digit 5 must prove it can work around people
One change in the new model is that it is designed to operate safely around humans. The previous model, like most humanoid robots, was intended for an isolated work cell. Agility plans to demonstrate Digit 5 prototypes at CES 2027 and make the robot widely available at the end of that year.
The commercial case depends on whether Digit can deliver useful work reliably. Agility estimates that a robot-as-a-service arrangement could save a company $100,000 a year, with greater savings if the customer buys the robot outright. Those economics depend on task accuracy and how long a unit can work before it needs recharging or maintenance.
Johnson points to repeated heavy lifting as a suitable task. She described a 50-pound object as an informal threshold some workplaces use to avoid injury, and said Digit can lift one repeatedly. That kind of consistent, narrow task is central to Agility’s strategy.
Digit can currently pick up heavy loads and place them with 98% accuracy, but it does not yet handle complex manipulation tasks. Customers also face a $500,000 cost for an on-site proof of concept before scaling up a deployment. Four customers had signed up for that process in May, 2026.
Customer data and capability will shape the next phase
Agility says it has 65,000 hours of operational data from real customers and facilities to help train Digit. Johnson contrasted that resource with the challenge of creating physical data about robot movements, where companies are also using simulation and other techniques.
It remains uncertain how quickly generative AI methods will give robots the dexterity to handle a broad range of items. Training based on video and teleoperation has not yet produced reliable general autonomy, while adapting transformer systems to different modalities appears promising to physical AI researchers.
Agility’s longer-term path, as described by cofounder and CTO Johnathan Hurst, starts with bins and totes before moving toward picking, kitting, cardboard, and loading or unloading tractor trailers. For now, the company’s challenge is more immediate: win customers for Digit 5, meet their operating requirements, and improve the robot’s abilities over time.
Agility says its production facility could make 10,000 robots annually, though it has not shared production targets for Digit 5. The planned capacity and the contracts point to ambition; the real test will be whether the robot performs well enough in customers’ facilities to support expansion.