Agility Robotics has introduced Digit 5, the newest version of its humanoid robot, pitching it as a machine that can share a working floor with people rather than operate behind safety barriers. The company presented the robot on September 15 and said its design drew on experience from earlier models already used in commercial settings.
The centerpiece of the update is a safety system that runs constantly while the robot works. Agility said Digit 5 uses artificial intelligence to track people nearby, flashes lights and sounds signals to show where it plans to move next, and relies on a separate safety controller that can step in if something goes wrong. The firm described the robot as the first humanoid to clear a field evaluation by OSHA, the US workplace safety regulator, for industrial use.
The machine stands 5 feet 11 inches tall, reaches objects at about 7.2 feet and weighs 284 pounds. It can lift loads of up to 50 pounds, a 40 percent gain over the previous generation. Its hands attach through a standard mount and can be swapped out, so a single robot can switch between tasks by changing the tool on the end of its arm during a shift.
Agility has also worked to keep the robot running with fewer breaks. Digit 5 uses a battery that lasts roughly 90 minutes and recharges in nine, a balance the company said allows more than 20 hours of useful work across a day. The robots are assembled at the firm’s RoboFab plant in Salem, Oregon, which is designed to turn out as many as 10,000 units a year. Peggy Johnson leads the company, which also runs sites in Pittsburgh and Fremont, California.
The company said it holds more than 300 million dollars in multiyear orders and named GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon and a Toyota manufacturing plant in Canada among its customers. Early access to Digit 5 is planned for the first half of 2027, with broader availability across North America, the European Union and the United Kingdom expected by the end of that year. The launch comes as a crowd of companies race to move humanoid robots out of the lab and onto real production lines.
