Agility Robotics heads to Wall Street in a $2.5B bet on staffing warehouses with humanoids - Greenwich Time
Subscribe Business # Agility Robotics heads to Wall Street in a $2.5B bet on staffing warehouses with humanoids By MATT O'BRIEN, AP Technology Writer A maker of humanlike robots that carry totes around warehouses is going public on Wall Street in a test of...
Key takeaways
- Recent reports highlight a rapid expansion of humanoid robot deployment across multiple sectors.
- BYD’s chief Stella Li has announced plans to introduce humanoid robots into every car showroom, positioning the Chinese EV giant against Tesla’s Optimus, which is slated for production later this year.
- In a separate move, Agility Robotics is going public via a $2.5 billion SPAC deal, following the deployment of its Digit robot in nine facilities—including Amazon, Toyota, and GXO—making it the first U.S. company to field commercially operational humanoids in warehouses.
- Meanwhile, Chinese maker Unitree is leading a rental boom, with customers able to hire androids for events or marketing for around $443 a day, and Beijing has launched a national program to place humanoids in over 100 high‑value scenarios by year‑end.
- These developments underscore a shift from laboratory demonstrations toward real‑world applications, with China dominating the market and U.S. firms increasingly pursuing commercial use cases.
Subscribe
Business
Agility Robotics heads to Wall Street in a $2.5B bet on staffing warehouses with humanoids
By MATT O'BRIEN, AP Technology Writer
A maker of humanlike robots that carry totes around warehouses is going public on Wall Street in a test of whether there's a market for putting AI-powered humanoid machines to work.
Agility Robotics, based in Salem, Oregon, announced Wednesday a planned merger with an investment firm that will value the company at $2.5 billion as it becomes the first publicly traded company entirely devoted to building and selling humanoids.
Article continues below this ad
Its competitors include Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk has pitched its humanoid prototype Optimus as the future of the carmaker. Designed to pick up and move heavy bins and totes, Agility's product line, called Digit, is the “first humanoid robot employed and commercially operational in warehouse and industrial facilities,” said Michael Klein, co-founder and chairman of Churchill Capital Group, which runs the special-purpose acquisition company that intends to merge with Agility by the end of the year.
More Business
Walmart gets okay to expand Wallingford store for online orders
The expansion of the Walmart in Wallingford is in addition to improvements being done at 10 of the retailers 31 stores in Connecticut.
Popular Newington eatery to close after 15 years on the Berlin Turnpike Add Preferred Source
While Agility describes its robot as a humanoid, the company's co-founder and chief robot officer Jonathan Hurst told investors Wednesday that “we’ve never set out to build a machine that looks like a person.” Unlike other humanoids, like Tesla's Optimus, Digit's legs are more birdlike than human in a design that's meant to better fit the work they do. Its hands are more like grippers or claws.
Agility CEO Peggy Johnson said Digit specializes in manual labor that for humans would be repetitive, dirty and prone to injury.
Article continues below this ad
Mentioned in this article