After a year-long pilot project, Toyota’s Canadian manufacturing subsidiary has contracted seven humanoid robots to work in a plant building RAV4 SUVs. This arrangement is part of a robots-as-a-service deal.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada President Tim Hollander stated that after evaluating several robots, the company is excited to deploy the Digit robot to improve the team member experience and increase operational efficiency.
The Digit robot is built by Agility Robotics, a firm spun out of Oregon State University in 2015. Digit is designed to work in industrial environments without humans nearby, often bridging two automated production lines. In this case, the robots will unload totes full of auto parts from an automated warehouse tugger.
While seven robots performing manual tasks may seem like a small step, actually deploying humanoid robots in real workplaces is rare and difficult. Demonstrating a capability in a lab is one thing, but integrating it into a company’s workflow, including maintenance and charging, is a significant challenge.
As noted at the Humanoids Summit in late 2025, a huge uptick in adoption will come when tech companies spend real time in the field understanding the tasks and real workflows. Agility is among the leaders in getting robots out of the lab, with Digits working for logistics providers like GXO, Schaeffler, and Amazon.
The company uses a proprietary cloud-based software package called Arc to manage fleets of its robots and states that AI will be vital in reducing deployment costs. The cost of deployment can often exceed the price of the robot itself, and AI tools help decrease that cost and the time required to configure the robot for optimal performance.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and Agility Robotics will use this engagement to pioneer other use cases that relieve human workers of repetitive physical tasks, allowing them to focus on more valuable work. Agility is also preparing a next-generation robot designed to be safe to operate alongside human workers. Current humanoid robots strong enough to lift heavy loads are still considered too unreliable to operate autonomously around people.
Competitor Figure AI tested its Figure 02 robots in a BMW factory for ten months last year, during which they unloaded 90,000 parts. Other companies deploying humanoids in pilot programs include Apptronic, Unitree, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, 1X Technology, and Reflex Robotics.