GXO Flowery Branch and Agility Robotics Digit

The deployment that broke the "humanoid robots only work in labs" frame. On June 5, 2024, a Digit bipedal humanoid robot from Agility Robotics began commercial operations at a GXO Logistics facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia, marking the first time a humanoid robot was deployed to a paying commercial customer's live workplace. By late 2025, the operation had moved more than 100,000 totes under a multi-year robots-as-a-service agreement, validating the entire commercial-humanoid thesis and putting Agility ahead of every Western humanoid competitor on the verified-deployment scoreboard.

The short version

GXO Flowery Branch is the canonical "first commercial humanoid" deployment in 2026. The site operates Digit robots from Agility Robotics under a multi-year robots-as-a-service agreement, handling repetitive material movement tasks in a live distribution center supporting SPANX-brand product fulfillment for GXO. The verified operating record makes Flowery Branch the reference deployment for what sustained humanoid-in-the-workplace operation actually looks like.

The operating site

The Flowery Branch facility sits outside Atlanta, Georgia, and is a GXO-operated distribution center for SPANX-brand women's apparel. The site combines traditional human warehouse workforce with multiple automation systems: cobot autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), conveyor systems, and now Digit humanoid robots operating alongside both. Digit's primary task is repetitive tote movement, including picking totes from cobots and placing them onto conveyors. The robots integrate with existing automation through the Agility Arc cloud platform, which orchestrates fleet deployment, mapping, workflow definition, and operational management.

GXO Logistics, headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut and listed on NYSE as GXO, is the world's largest pure-play contract logistics provider. Its decision to be the first commercial customer for humanoid robots was driven, per the company's public statements, by an R&D approach of partnering with technology developers early to validate operating capability in live warehouse environments.

The history

The deployment unfolded in clearly documented stages:

Late 2023: An initial proof-of-concept pilot at the GXO Flowery Branch / SPANX facility. The pilot's success laid groundwork for commercial expansion.

June 5, 2024: Digit stepped into commercial operations at GXO Flowery Branch. This was the first time a humanoid robot was deployed in a live workplace at a paying commercial customer site. The milestone was announced retrospectively by Agility in October 2024.

June 27, 2024: GXO and Agility announced a multi-year robots-as-a-service (RaaS) agreement, the industry's first formal commercial humanoid deployment of this type. The RaaS structure means GXO pays for operational capability over time rather than purchasing robots outright; Agility handles deployment, maintenance, fleet management, and software updates.

August 8, 2024: The RaaS agreement was formalized publicly with deployment scaling. Operations continued to expand through 2024 and 2025.

Late 2025: Cumulative tote-movement count exceeded 100,000 at the Flowery Branch facility, announced by Agility Robotics on November 20, 2025. This is the most-cited operational metric for the deployment and the benchmark against which subsequent humanoid deployments are measured.

What gets verified

The verified record for GXO Flowery Branch is unusually clean for a humanoid deployment because both GXO (as a public company) and Agility Robotics have published consistent operational milestones with dates and sources. Key verified data points:

Operator: GXO Logistics (NYSE: GXO), via SPANX distribution center.
Site: Flowery Branch, Georgia (Atlanta metro area).
Robot: Digit, bipedal humanoid, Agility Robotics, 5'9" / 175 cm, 35 lb / 16 kg payload, bird-leg topology.
Software/Fleet platform: Agility Arc cloud platform.
Commercial structure: Multi-year robots-as-a-service agreement.
First commercial operation: June 5, 2024.
First public milestone: 100,000+ totes moved as of November 2025.
Integration: Operates alongside cobot AMRs and conveyor systems through Agility Arc orchestration.

What this deployment proves

Three things, each of which were live questions when GXO Flowery Branch began commercial operation:

That humanoid robots can sustain commercial-grade operation for months at scale. 100,000+ totes moved at a single facility under contract is operating-volume validation that distinguishes a commercial deployment from an extended pilot. Prior humanoid deployments at automotive plants (including the BMW Spartanburg pilot with Figure 02) were time-limited evaluations; the GXO RaaS is a sustained commercial relationship.

That RaaS is a viable commercial model for humanoid robotics. The model lets customers pay for operating capability rather than capital-cost humanoid units, and lets Agility iterate on hardware revisions without forcing customer hardware swaps. Subsequent Agility deployments at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (February 2026), Amazon, and Schaeffler have followed the same RaaS structure.

That humanoids can integrate with existing warehouse automation rather than requiring greenfield deployment. The Flowery Branch site combines Digit, cobot AMRs, conveyors, and human workforce. The operation does not require the warehouse to be redesigned around humanoid form factor; Digit fits into spaces designed for human workers and the existing automation grid.

What to watch

Two things matter most for what GXO Flowery Branch becomes in the next eighteen months.

First, whether GXO's deployment expands to additional GXO facilities beyond Flowery Branch. GXO operates hundreds of warehouses globally; if the Flowery Branch reference customer produces deployment in three, five, or ten additional GXO sites, that signals that humanoid-in-warehouse operation has crossed from pilot to scale-up phase across the broader GXO network, not just one site.

Second, whether the 100,000-totes operating-data milestone becomes the standard benchmark other humanoid deployments measure against. The metric is GXO-and-Agility-specific (a tote is the SPANX distribution unit at this facility), but the operational concept (cumulative work units moved over sustained operation) is the kind of verified-deployment data the industry now expects from any humanoid commercial deployment. Whether Figure, Apptronik, Tesla, Unitree, or others publish equivalent metrics through 2026 will determine whether the operational-transparency norm holds across the category.

The verified record is below. Numbers reflect Agility Robotics public disclosures, GXO Logistics public statements, and primary-source coverage as of late May 2026.