Agility Robotics has unveiled the fifth generation of its Digit humanoid robot, increasing payload, reducing charging time and introducing a new safety architecture as the company attempts to move humanoid automation from individual deployments towards larger industrial fleets.
Digit 5 can repeatedly lift loads up to 22.7kg, around 40% more than its predecessor, while a new battery provides approximately 90 minutes of runtime and can recharge in nine minutes. Agility says the resulting 10:1 run-to-charge ratio can support more than 20 productive hours within a 24-hour operating period.
The specifications target two practical constraints on humanoid robotics that receive less attention than manipulation demonstrations. A robot working in a factory or warehouse has to handle loads relevant to human workflows and remain productive for enough of the day to justify its capital and operating cost.
Charging has a direct effect on that utilisation. Digit 4 operated at a much lower ratio between working time and charging time, according to Agility, while the new battery architecture is intended to let the fifth-generation machine return to work after a short automated charging stop.
The larger change is safety. Digit 5 is the company’s first humanoid designed specifically around what Agility describes as cooperatively safe operation at industrial scale, allowing it to work close to people without relying entirely on the fixed protective barriers associated with traditional industrial robot cells.
Multiple sensors and proprietary detection software continuously monitor for nearby people. Depending on the situation, the robot can alter its path, stop or move into a seated position, while an independent safety controller supervises responses when someone enters an unsafe area.
Visual and audible cues are intended to communicate movement intentions to workers sharing the same space. That becomes important for a mobile robot because people cannot rely on a fixed fence or painted cell boundary to understand where the machine may move next.
Agility is also contributing to standards work covering dynamically stable mobile robots and humanoids in North America and internationally. Digit 5 is a launch partner for Nvidia’s Halos for Robotics safety platform, with the architecture using Nvidia IGX Thor and related safety infrastructure.
The hardware has been developed from nearly three years of commercial Digit 4 operation. Agility says the preceding generation has accumulated more than 65,000 operating hours across customer sites including GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada.
At GXO’s Flowery Branch logistics facility in Georgia, Digit 4 passed 100,000 tote movements while maintaining approximately 98% accuracy when on task. That type of operating history is valuable because repetitive industrial work exposes weaknesses that may not appear in demonstrations.
A robot can perform a task successfully once and still struggle in production when containers are damaged, floor traffic blocks its route, component position changes or a recovery event occurs hundreds of times across a shift.
Digit 5 is intended to move beyond the tote-handling applications that dominated earlier deployments. Agility lists depalletising, machine tending, kitting, sequencing, quality inspection and palletising among the workflows it expects the new generation to address.
Swappable end effectors using standard mounting interfaces are intended to support that range. One humanoid could theoretically move between tasks rather than requiring a dedicated robot architecture at each workstation, although practical changeover time and tool availability will determine how much of that flexibility is useful in production.
The new leg design supports the higher payload while keeping the machine within a human-scale footprint. Digit 5 weighs 129kg, stands around 1.81 metres tall and can reach approximately 2.2 metres, allowing it to work around aisles, shelves, doorways and stations originally designed for people.
That compatibility is the core economic argument behind humanoid automation. Factories and warehouses contain infrastructure built around human reach and mobility, so a robot with broadly similar physical dimensions may be able to automate tasks spread across several existing work areas without rebuilding the facility around fixed machinery.
The cost is mechanical complexity. A walking robot combines balancing, sensing, manipulation, batteries and mobile navigation in a single machine, creating many more possible failure modes than a fixed arm bolted beside one production process.
Humanoid systems therefore have to demonstrate that flexibility offsets that complexity over long periods. The relevant measures will be uptime, throughput, intervention frequency and maintenance cost rather than whether the robot can complete an impressive isolated movement.
Agility Arc provides the fleet-management layer, monitoring measures including throughput, uptime and mean time between incidents while linking Digit deployments with warehouse and manufacturing systems. That becomes more important as individual robots operate across several workflows and fleets increase beyond a few machines.
Commercial interest has moved beyond pilots, although the figures require qualification. Agility reported more than $300 million in multi-year Digit 5 customer orders as of May 2026, subject to satisfaction of contractual milestones. Those orders therefore represent conditional commercial commitments rather than recognised revenue or robots already delivered.
The production system is also designed well ahead of current output. Digit is assembled at RoboFab in Salem, Oregon, a 70,000 sq ft facility designed for capacity of up to 10,000 robots per year and more than 500 employees at full scale.
That 10,000-unit figure is factory design capacity, not present production. Reaching it would require substantially greater customer deployment, component supply, service capability and manufacturing throughput than Agility operates today.
Early access to Digit 5 is expected during the first half of 2027, with general availability by the end of that year. Agility also plans commercial deployment in the UK and European Union, with CE and other regulatory markings intended to support market entry.
Digit 5 therefore reaches the market with more field history behind it than many humanoid launches. The engineering advances address real industrial constraints — payload, charging, safety and task range — rather than simply changing the machine’s appearance.
The harder question now moves from demonstration to fleet economics. If Agility can turn 65,000 hours of previous-generation experience into machines that operate reliably across several production workflows, humanoids may begin to justify larger deployments. If intervention and maintenance remain high, the flexibility of a human-shaped robot will still struggle to beat simpler automation designed around one task.
