# The robot that squats so you don't get hurt

> Agility's Digit 5 is built to sense people and back off, which is what finally lets humanoids out of their cages.
- Title: The robot that squats so you don't get hurt · Ars Technica
- Summary: Agility's Digit 5 is built to sense people and back off, which is what finally lets humanoids out of their cages. Safety, not strength or smarts, is the gate…
- Keywords: robotics, humanoids, warehouse automation, workplace safety, agility robotics, technology, science, robot, squats, don't, get, hurt
- Source: Ars Technica — https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/agilitys-new-humanoid-robot-will-stop-squat-to-avoid-harming-human-coworkers
- Published: 2026-09-15T18:33:02+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: robotics, humanoids, warehouse automation, workplace safety, agility robotics, technology, science
## A robot that yields
Agility Robotics unveiled Digit 5, its first humanoid engineered to work near people without hurting them. No safety cage, no separation barriers, just a machine that gets out of the way.
## Stop, step aside, squat
Spot a person at a distance and Digit 5 moves around them or freezes so they can pass. Let someone get close and it squats into a seated position, dropping its mass low.

> The robot was designed with a complex safe motion system that can take a variety of different mitigations
## Shipping in 2027
Early customers get access in the first half of 2027, with general availability by year end. Agility is retooling its RoboFab plant in Salem, Oregon, to build it.
## 65,000 hours on the clock
Agility put humanoids into full-time commercial work at a GXO warehouse in Atlanta in 2024. Earlier Digit models have since logged over 65,000 hours for GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon and Toyota Canada.
## Safety is the industry blocker
US and Chinese firms are racing to scale humanoid production, but none of them can put robots next to people at will. Agility's cofounder calls safety a blocker for everybody.

> blocker for everybody
## Sensors plus Nvidia silicon
Digit 5 reads its surroundings with several kinds of vision-based sensors feeding AI detection. It runs on Nvidia's Thor IGX compute with the Halos robotics safety software stack.

> we're one of the first adopters to be taking that through to a functionally safe application
## Writing the rulebook too
Agility built these features while sitting on the ISO working group drafting ISO 25785-1, a safety standard for industrial mobile robots. It is in committee review, awaiting a vote by 89 member nations.
## Taller, stronger, faster to charge
New legs let it lift 50 pounds repeatedly, covering every OSHA single-person lift task. At 5 feet 11 it reaches 7.2 feet, and a 90 minute battery recharges in nine, so it works 20+ hours a day.
## Hands you can swap
Digit 5 takes interchangeable grippers, so a new end-effector clips on for a different job. Paired with AI-based skills, it handles more than shuttling totes around.
## Cooperative now, collaborative next
Today it means sharing an aisle, or pausing while a person swaps a pallet it just stacked. Prove that in real deployments and the next step is humanoids working shoulder to shoulder with people.

> it's not really practical to constrain the robot within a physical safety cage
## Key takeaway

Safety, not strength or smarts, is the gate on humanoid robots earning a spot on the warehouse floor.