Agility's Digit 5 May Be the First Truly Safe Humanoid Robot Worker
Despite the flood of videos showing humanoid robots doing backflips and kung fu, progress toward humanoids that can perform economically viable jobs at scale has been slow. There are good reasons: a humanoid robot must be powerful enough for useful work, safe enough for humans to walk past, and have enough battery life to limit charging time. But these three requirements conflict with each other.
Agility Robotics' new Digit 5, announced today, may have found the sweet spot. It can lift 23 kilograms up 2.1 meters, work in close proximity to people without physical barriers, and operate for more than 20 hours a day. This combination results in a 1.8-meter-tall, 129-kilogram robot that prioritizes functionality over style, but that is what it takes to get humanoids a job.
Humanoid robot companies have been reluctant to discuss safety because there are no easy answers to what happens if a bipedal robot falls on someone. Agility's answer is to make it physically impossible for Digit 5 to fall on anyone by autonomously avoiding, stopping, or assuming a seated position. When a person approaches, Digit 5 puts down its load and, if necessary, sits stably on the ground before the person gets near. It may not be elegant, but it works—no other commercial humanoid is known to have such a feature.
The other big change is Digit 5's legs. Agility Robotics introduced Cassie and then a series of Digit robots with bird-like 'backwards' legs. Agility co-founder Jonathan Hurst explained in a 2019 IEEE Spectrum article that this configuration came from analyzing animal locomotion physics. For fans of Cassie, the reality is that bird legs are optimal for dynamic motion, while human legs are better for squats and lifts—as anyone who has seen an ostrich try to lift a heavy box or tried to outrun a cassowary would understand.
Digit 5's cost is not officially announced, but Agility's June SEC filing ahead of its planned IPO by the end of 2026 reveals some details. At launch, Digit 5's bill of materials (BOM) cost is likely between $150,000 and $200,000. This is just the cost of parts, not the total build cost. Based on real production data, Agility anticipates that with near-term optimization and a volume of 10,000 units per year, that cost should drop to under $50,000 per robot.
The accompanying rendering shows Digit 5 robots working in a factory with humans nearby—no safety barriers needed. When a human approaches, the robot puts down what it's carrying and squats down so it can't fall on anybody.
Agility estimates that Digit 5 will be offered to customers as a service for about $8,500 per month. Based on 20 hours of work per day and an assumed total cost of a human worker of $30.50 per hour, Digit 5 as a service could save employers $100,000 per year, per robot. These numbers are purely illustrative estimates and could change.
As of May 2026, Agility says it has more than $300 million in multi-year customer orders for Digit 5, with a sales pipeline across manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics. That works out to fewer than 1,000 robots—one-tenth of the full capacity of Agility's RoboFab factory in Oregon.
Between now and delivering those robots, Agility plans to go public through a SPAC merger, expected to close within a few months. The company hopes to raise more than $620 million to scale production of Digit 5 and deliver to customers. Those in the EU and UK should be able to buy the bots in 2027.