Technology and Science15 September, 20263 min read
Agility Robotics Unveils Digit 5 Humanoid That Detects People And Stops Nearby
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Digit 5 lifts up to 50 pounds and recharges in about nine minutes. It detects people nearby and slows or stops to work safely beside humans.
9 outlets told this the same way.
Digit 5’s safety-first design
Agility Robotics unveiled Digit 5, a next-generation humanoid robot designed to detect people nearby and slow down or stop when they get too close. Agility says Digit 5 can lower itself to the ground and shut off its motors before people reach it, and Business Insider reported the robot is built to work in spaces without the safety barriers that earlier Digit versions used in warehouses and factories. Agility cofounder and chief robot officer Jonathan Hurst said, "Digit 5 is the first machine that is the full, formal product that has come from customer requirements and solves a couple of the major, absolute blockers".
The company also said Digit 5 can lift up to 50 pounds, and it can recharge in about nine minutes after roughly 90 minutes of work, allowing it to operate for more than 20 hours a day. Digit 5 is expected to become available in North America in the first half of 2027, followed by the European Union and the United Kingdom later that year.
Payload, charging, and pricing
Agility says Digit 5 is built to do heavier work than its predecessor, replacing its signature backward-bending knees with a more human-like design that Hurst said gives the robot more strength for lifting and squatting. Business Insider reported Digit 5 can lift up to 50 pounds and can walk to a charging dock when its battery runs low, connecting via a port on its back. Agility’s illustrative economics in a securities filing described a model in which a customer would pay about $200,000 for a Digit 5, plus about a $20,000 deployment fee and $36,000 a year for software and maintenance.
In a separate robots-as-a-service outline, AI Insider said Agility outlined illustrative pricing of $8,500 a month under a robots-as-a-service model or about $200,000 for an upfront purchase. Agility also said it has more than $300 million in multiyear orders for Digit 5, even as the business remains unprofitable, with Business Insider citing $1.8 million in net sales in 2025 and a $140 million operating loss.
From pilots to industrial scale
Agility positioned Digit 5 as a step from pilots to industrial deployments, saying it is designed to let the robot work more closely with people in factories and warehouses while reducing reliance on physical barriers. AI Insider said Digit 5 adds three main safety features—human detection, safety cues, and independent motion control—and it reported Agility is working with Nvidia on the system as the first launch partner for Nvidia’s Halos for Robotics platform. In Ars Technica’s account, Agility’s Digit 5 can autonomously take precautions when it detects a person at a distance, including moving to avoid the person or standing still so the person can pass by without getting closer.
Ars Technica also quoted Agility chief technology officer Pras Velagapudi saying, "The robot was designed with a complex safe motion system that can take a variety of different mitigations". Agility said Digit 5 is assembled at its RoboFab facility in Salem, Ore., designed for annual production capacity of up to 10,000 robots, and it reported Digit 4 has logged more than 65,000 hours of operational time across customer sites in North America.