Backflipping robots make for splashy demos and viral videos, but Agility Robotics sees humanoid bots doing something simpler — solving an urgent global labor issue inside manufacturing plants.
The Oregon-based startup has so far deployed its humanoid robot, Digit, at Amazon, Schaeffler Group, and GXO, a logistics company. The startup announced in February that a few Digit robots would be deployed in Toyota’s massive manufacturing plant in Canada, marking yet another automaker betting on bipedal bots.
Daniel Diez, Agility’s chief business officer, told Business Insider that there’s a common thread at the companies he visits around the world. In Germany, Korea, Japan, or the US, manufacturers just don’t have enough people who want to work mundane, repetitive jobs.
“It’s the same exact issue: Labor gaps in these highly repetitive physical tasks,” Diez said. “They simply can’t find the people to do this work.”
There is no shortage of manufacturing roles. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 400,000 job openings in the sector in the US as of December 2025.
In addition to vacancies, talent retention remains a top concern for manufacturers, according to a 2024 survey of more than 200 companies conducted by The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte.
Diez said there are “compounding effects” to the so-called labor gap.
A significant share of the manufacturing workforce is 55 and over, he said, meaning they’re approaching retirement. BLS’s Current Population Survey clocks the number at a little over 25%.
Add to that the Trump Administration’s push to bring onshore manufacturing back, which Diez said will only create more jobs and a greater need for automation.
“This re-shoring of manufacturing in the US is going to only occur through a combination of human employment and automation technology, like humans and robotics,” he said.
Automakers are notably bracing for this shifting tide. Tesla, Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Hyundai, among others, have made significant investments in humanoid robots with the prospect that they’ll work the assembly lines in the near future.
Boston Dynamics in January unveiled a new iteration of Atlas, an all-electric humanoid, that the startup aims to deploy in Hyundai’s Georgia factory in a few years.
The company’s former CEO, Robert Playter, previously told Business Insider that Boston Dynamics is helping companies brace for population decline and increased manufacturing demand.
At Toyota Motor’s manufacturing plant in Ontario, the automaker is starting with three Digit bots that will do the simple task of moving totes, or plastic containers, from one spot to another.
There are robots out there that could execute much more complex tasks, while some industry insiders say humanoids, or bots with two legs and arms, are still years away from scaling. Part of the pitch for the bipedal form factor is easier integration into existing or older factories, Diez said.
“At this moment in time, it feels like an ideal solution for brownfield facilities,” he said, referring to underutilized industrial facilities that tend to have a baked-in layout. In other words, with humanoids, manufacturers can automate their properties without making significant changes to the factory layout and workflow.
Diez said that any industry with highly repetitive tasks is ripe for the adoption of humanoid robots. The industries Agility Robotics is seeing with the most “inbound” requests are coming from warehouse logistics, e-commerce fulfillment, automotive, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, he said.
“We’re not having to convince people that this is a technology need,” Diez said. “We have more than enough hand-raisers who are coming to us.”
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