After a year-long pilot project, Toyota’s Canadian manufacturing subsidiary has contracted seven humanoid robots to work at a plant making the RAV4 SUV as part of a robots-as-a-service deal.
“After evaluating a number of robots, we are excited to deploy Digit to improve the team member experience and further increase operational efficiency in our manufacturing facilities,” Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) president Tim Hollander said in a statement.
The Digit robot in question is built by Agility Robotics, a company spun out of Oregon State University in 2015. Digit is designed to work in an industrial environment without people nearby, often connecting two automated production lines. In this case, robots will unload bags full of auto parts from an automated warehouse hauler.
While seven robots doing manual labor may seem like a small step compared to hissing discs of metal humans doing backflips, the actual deployment of humanoid robots in real workplaces is rare and difficult. Demonstrating the capability in the lab is one thing, but integrating it into a company’s workflow—including maintenance and charging—isn’t easy.
“When technology companies spend real time in the field understanding the task that needs to be done, the real workflows that are happening… that’s when we’ll see a huge increase in adoption,” said Ram Devarajulu, vice president of Cambridge Consultants, at the Humanoids Summit in late 2025.
Agility is among the leaders in getting robots out of the lab, with Digits working in similar capacities for logistics providers such as GXO, Schaeffler and Amazon. The company has its own cloud-based software package called Arc, which allows users to manage their fleets of robots, and says artificial intelligence will be crucial in reducing deployment costs.
“The cost of deployment … can be much higher than the cost of the robot,” Pras Velagapudi, Agility’s CTO, said in an interview last year. “Artificial intelligence tools allow us to reduce deployment costs, reduce the time it takes to configure a robot and get it up and running at the desired performance level.”
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TMMC and Agility will use this engagement as an opportunity to pioneer additional use cases that free human workers from repetitive physical tasks and prioritize more valuable work.
The company is also preparing a next-generation robot that will work safely alongside human workers; current humanoid robots that are strong enough to lift heavy loads are still considered too unreliable to function autonomously around humans.
Competitor Figure AI tested its Figure 02 robots at a BMW factory for 10 months last year, with the company saying it unloaded 90,000 parts. Other companies deploying humanoids in pilot programs include Apptronic, Unitree, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, 1X Technology and Reflex Robotics.