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Up to now, the humanoid robotics industry has been all promises and pilots. While important in the eventual deployment of new technology, these programs involve a small number of robots and often don\u2019t graduate into anything more meaningful. On Thursday, however, Agility<\/a> announced that it has entered into a formal deal following a successful pilot with logistics giant GXO.<\/p>\n Digit\u2019s first job will be moving plastic totes around a Georgia Spanx factory \u2014 which is most definitely not a euphemism. Neither party has revealed precisely how many of the bipedal robots will be pulling boxes off cobots and placing them onto conveyor belts, which likely means the figure is still on the small side. When we\u2019re talking tens or hundreds of thousands, the parties involved would typically be eager to share that info.<\/p>\n The systems are being leased as part of a RaaS (robots-as-a-service) model, rather than being purchased outright. This allows the client to defer the massive upfront costs of such a complex system, while still having access to support and software updates.<\/p>\n GXO began piloting Digit robots last year. The logistics firm also recently announced a pilot deal with one of Agility\u2019s biggest competitors, Apptronik<\/a>. It\u2019s not clear how one will affect the other.<\/p>\n Peggy Johnson, who stepped into Agility\u2019s CEO role in March, has stressed the firm\u2019s focus on ROI \u2014 a marked difference in a category where the results are still largely theoretical.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be many firsts in the humanoid robot market in the years to come, but I\u2019m extremely proud of the fact that Agility is the first with actual humanoid robots deployed at a customer site, generating revenue and solving real-world business problems,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAgility has always been focused on the only metric that matters \u2014 delivering value to our customers by putting Digit to work \u2014 and this milestone deployment raises the bar for the entire industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Oregon-based Agility has been ahead of the rest of the market in terms of development and deployment, so it\u2019s not surprising to see the company be the first to another key milestone. Of course, this is still very much early days for the industry and no clear market leader has emerged.<\/p>\n