Makers of humanoid robots are targeting logistics, specifically the warehouse, as they continue a steady march to integrate their human-looking machines into today’s increasingly automated workplaces. That’s because research shows that the labor-intensive warehouse is a promising market for the still-nascent technology, which mimics the human body and can perform a range of material handling and order fulfillment tasks.

U.K.-based research firm IDTechEx projects logistics and warehousing will be the second-largest adopter of humanoid robots over the next 10 years, following just behind the automotive industry (see Exhibit 1). Key benefits in the warehouse include bringing precision and consistency to repetitive tasks and improving speed while minimizing human error, the company said in an October market outlook report.

“Facing acute labor shortages and rising operational complexity, warehouses are turning to humanoids as a promising solution,” according to the report. “The benefits are multifaceted: Humanoid robots help lower labor costs, reduce operational disruptions, and offer unmatched flexibility, capable of adapting to varying tasks throughout the day.”

But the research also tells a deeper story: As of last year, humanoid robot deployment in warehouses remained below 5%, due to both technological and commercial roadblocks. Short operating time and long recharge cycles can create substantial downtime, for instance, while limited field testing and safety concerns have left many end-users cautious. A separate industry study, by U.K. researcher Interact Analysis, predicts humanoid robot growth will be relatively slow in the short term, reaching about 40,000 shipments globally by 2032.

“The humanoid robot market is currently experiencing substantial hype, fueled by a large addressable market and significant investment activity,” Rueben Scriven, research manager at Interact Analysis, wrote in the 2025 report. “However, despite the potential, our outlook remains cautious due to several key barriers that hinder widespread adoption, including high prices and the gap in the dexterity needed to match human productivity levels, both of which are likely to persist into the next decade. However, we maintain that there’s a significant potential in the mid- to long term.”

Challenges aside, the work to develop and deploy humanoids continues, with many companies hitting major milestones in 2025 and early 2026. Here’s a look at some of the most recent accomplishments.

DIGIT GETS BUSY

Humanoid robots resemble the human body—in general, they have a torso, head, and two arms and legs, but they can also replicate just portions of the body. Robotic arms can be considered humanoid, as can bots that feature an upper body on a wheeled base. The bipedal variety—those that can walk on two legs—are gaining momentum.

Agility Robotics announced late last year that its bipedal humanoid robot, called Digit, had moved more than 100,000 totes in a commercial environment—at a GXO Logistics facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Just a few weeks later, the company said it would deploy Digit robots in San Antonio, Texas, to handle fulfillment operations for e-commerce fulfillment platform Mercado Libre. The companies said they plan to explore additional uses for Digit across Mercado Libre’s warehouses in Latin America. They did not give a timeframe for the rollout.

Agility’s humanoid robots are also in use at facilities run by Amazon and German motion technology company Schaeffler.

Agility is a business unit of Humanoid Global Holdings, which includes robotic companies Cartwheel Robotics, RideScan Ltd., and Formic Technologies Inc. in its portfolio of businesses.

ALPHA BIPEDAL TAKES OFF

U.K.-based robotics and AI (artificial intelligence) developer Humanoid launched its first bipedal robot this past December, introducing HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal. The robot went from design to working prototype in just five months and was up and walking just 48 hours after final assembly—a feat that typically takes weeks or even months, according to the bot’s developers.

Alpha Bipedal stands five feet, 10 inches tall and can carry loads of 33 pounds in its arms. Still in testing, the bot is designed to tackle industrial, household, and service tasks.

“HMND 01 is designed to address real-world challenges across industrial and home environments,” Artem Sokolov, founder and CEO of Humanoid, said in a December statement announcing the launch. “With manufacturing sectors facing labor shortages of up to 27%, leaving significant gaps in production, and millions of people performing physically demanding or repetitive tasks, robots can provide meaningful support. In domestic environments, they have the potential to assist elderly people or those with physical limitations, helping with object handling, coordination, and daily activities. Every day, over 16 billion hours are spent on unpaid domestic and care work worldwide—work that, if valued economically, would exceed 40% of GDP in some countries. By taking on these responsibilities, humanoid robots can free humans to focus on higher-value and safer work, improving their productivity and quality of life.”

HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal follows the September launch of Humanoid’s wheeled Alpha platform, which has been tested commercially and helped extend the company’s reach from industrial and logistics tasks—including warehouse automation, picking, and palletizing—to domestic support applications.

AGILE ONE TAKES OFF

Robotic automation company Agile Robots launched its first humanoid robot, called Agile One, in November. The robot is designed to work in industrial settings, where company leaders say it can operate safely and efficiently alongside humans and other robotic solutions. The bot’s key tasks include material gathering and transport, pick-and-place operations, machine tending, tool use, and fine manipulation.

Agile One will be manufactured at the company’s facilities in Germany.

“At Agile Robots, we believe the next industrial revolution is Physical AI: intelligent, autonomous, and flexible robots that can perceive, understand, and act in the physical world,” Agile Robots’ CEO and founder, Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, said in a statement announcing the launch. “Agile One embodies this revolution.”

The new humanoid is part of the company’s wider portfolio of AI-driven robotic systems, which includes robotic hands and arms as well as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). All are driven by the company’s AI software platform, AgileCore, and are designed to work together.

“The real value for our industrial customers isn’t just a stand-alone intelligent humanoid, but an entire intelligent production system,” Chen said in the statement. “We see [Agile One] working seamlessly alongside our other robotic solutions, each part of the system, connected and learning from each other. This approach of applying Physical AI to whole production systems can give our customers a new level of holistic efficiency and quality.”

Full production of Agile One begins this year.

​Safety first: Industry updates standards for humanoid robots

As two-legged and four-legged robots begin to find applications in supply chain operations, the sector is refining its safety standards to ensure that humanoid and collaborative robots can be deployed at scale, according to a December report from Interact Analysis.

The work is necessary because the unique mechanics associated with legged robotics introduce new challenges around stability, fall dynamics, and unpredictable motion, according to report author Clara Sipes, a market analyst at Interact Analysis. To be precise, unlike statically stable machines, dynamically stable machines such as humanoids collapse when power is cut, creating residual risk in the event of a fall.

In response, new standards such as the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 26058-1 and ISO 25785-1 have been developed to address both statically and dynamically stable mobile robotics. In addition, ISO TR (Technical Report) R15.108 examines the challenges associated with bipedal, quadrupedal, and wheeled balancing mobile robots.

According to the Interact Analysis report, one of the most notable shifts is the removal of references to “collaborative modes.” In the most recent revisions, collaborative robots must be evaluated based on the application, not the robot alone, since each application carries its own risks, and the standard now encourages assessing the entire environment within which the robot operates.

Additional changes cover requirements for improved cyber resilience, the report said. European regulatory changes, particularly the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), AI Act, and Machinery Regulation, are establishing a unified framework for safety, cybersecurity, and risk management. That will shape the future of industrial automation by addressing new vulnerabilities within products that are increasingly connected to a network.

In its report, Interact Analysis advised manufacturers and integrators in the robotic sector to prepare early for the upcoming standards revisions. With multiple regulations taking effect over the next few years, organizations that begin aligning now will avoid costly redesigns and rushed compliance efforts later, the report noted.

—Ben Ames, Senior News Editor

The state of the freight economy, rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and accelerating levels of fraud across the trucking industry topped the agenda at SMC³ JumpStart26, an annual supply chain education event held in Atlanta earlier this week.

JumpStart brings together professionals from across the less-than-truckload (LTL) industry for three days of networking, presentations, and panel discussions on the issues affecting the industry. More than 500 people turned out for the event, which was held at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly, January 26-28.

The freight economy continues to be marked by uncertainty, despite some bright spots on the broader economic horizon, according to economist Keith Prather of Armada Corporate Intelligence, who gave an economic update on the first day of the conference. Prather cited consumer spending on services rather than goods, tariff volatility, and an unhealthy housing market as persistent drags on the freight economy. Bright spots include anticipated tax refunds that may boost consumer spending on goods later this year, a slowly improving residential construction market that could help spur freight movement, and strong GPD growth heading into 2026.

Touting AI

AI dominated much of the discussion over the three days, with LTL freight carriers, third-party logistics services (3PL) providers, and technology companies detailing how the technology can be used to improve operations within companies and across the industry. Speakers included Mark Albrecht, vice president of artificial intelligence and enterprise strategy at 3PL C.H. Robinson.

Albrecht’s talk coincided with the company’s launch of AI agents aimed at combatting missed LTL pickups. Two new AI agents are tracking down missed pickups and using advanced reasoning to determine how to keep freight moving, according to a January 26 company announcement. C.H. Robinson said it has automated 95% of checks on missed LTL pickups, saving more than 350 hours of manual work per day, helping shippers’ freight move up to a day faster, and reducing unnecessary return trips to pick up missed freight by 42%. The tools are part of a fleet of more than 30 AI agents C.H. Robinson has developed in house to streamline LTL processes.

Cracking down on fraud

The conference also featured an interview with Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Barrs addressed the widespread fraud affecting the trucking industry, discussing how FMCSA is working with states and other federal agencies to combat safety problems arising from several issues, including the issuing of non-domiciled commercial drivers licenses (CDLs), English-language proficiency enforcement, and entry-level driver training programs.

Barrs said FMCSA is working with states to ensure the enforcement of existing English-language proficiency regulations and that “thousands and thousands” of drivers have been placed out of service as a result. FMCSA is also working with states to review their processes for issuing non-domiciled CDLs, which may be granted to non-citizens living in the United States. Much of the problem centers around states issuing licenses to non-citizens for periods of time that exceed their legal status to work in the country. Barrs said most states have stopped issuing non-domiciled CDLs while those processes are being reviewed but said much work remains to fix breakdowns in the system.

Barrs said FMCSA is focused on rooting out bad actors in driver training as well, noting that he agency has removed 6,800 listings from its training provider registry to date and that investigations of driver training schools continue.

Show organizers cited a strong turnout for the event despite being affected by winter storm Fern, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations nationwide and widespread power outages in the Southeast. The crowd of more than 500 attendees was down from an expected group of more than 700 registrants.

SMC³ will hold its annual Connections event this coming June in Palm Beach, Fla.

With its distribution center lease set to expire and facing rising West Coast leasing costs, women’s fashion brand Cabi Clothing (cabi) embarked on a DC relocation journey in early 2024 that yielded big results in short order. In just two years, the California-based fashion business has retooled its distribution and delivery processes and is now getting orders to customers nationwide and overseas faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Cabi did it by moving the company’s West Coast DC to the Midwest and adding automation that has helped streamline workflows, reduce associate training time, and ease staffing constraints.

The company partnered with supply chain consulting firm Alpine Supply Chain Solutions and systems integrator Systems in Motion to tackle the problem, completing a market assessment, DC relocation plan, automation analysis, and new facility opening in just 12 months, followed soon after by the implementation of automated warehouse equipment that now has the new DC—located in Indianapolis—humming along.

“We came to Alpine in January of 2024 saying our lease was expiring in a year and it was time for us to do a market assessment” to determine the next steps for upgrading the fulfillment network, explains Greg Abel, cabi’s chief operating officer. “Now we are fully operational [in Indianapolis], with a hum to it.

“Whether this had opened six months ago or six years ago, you wouldn’t know the difference.”

GROWING PAINS

Cabi does business through independent sellers, called stylists, who work with clients across a mix of in-home and online experiences—primarily via hosted gatherings called “shows.” The company was founded in 2001 in California and has grown steadily, now delivering to customers across the United States and Canada, and in the United Kingdom. Abel says the company’s logistics operations were experiencing growing pains as a result: Demand for fast delivery made it difficult, and costly, to serve that growing client base from a single West Coast DC; the seasonality of the business means that inventory changes quickly, further complicating fulfillment; and the rise of e-commerce has led to increasing pressure for on-demand orders—those placed after or outside of a hosted event.

After examining several options—including adopting a multifacility network and potentially working with third-party logistics service (3PL) providers—the partners decided that a single, centrally located DC was the best answer to those challenges. But company leaders would need to move fast to avoid any disruptions to cabi’s highly seasonal business.

MAKING THE SWITCH

Cabi launches two main collections per year, so the DC needs to be stocked and ready to ship well in advance of those introduction dates. Inventory must be in place by late November to meet the January launch date and by late May to be ready for the July launch. Cabi’s move to Indianapolis needed to be done by the fall of 2024 in order to meet the first collection launch date.

The partners did just that: They leased a 125,000-square-foot facility in central Indianapolis that was staffed and ready to receive inventory by the November 2024 deadline. Although the central location of the Indianapolis facility would do much to reduce fulfillment and delivery times, the partners also made process changes to boost productivity and efficiency. For example, picking and sorting were streamlined to reduce the multiple “touches” involved in filling orders. The California DC, for example, had used a discrete order-picking process, in which workers picked individual items—per show or host—from warehouse shelves into totes. The totes were then taken to a pack table, where the items were manually sorted to fill individual orders that would be delivered directly to each host’s show attendees.

In Indianapolis, cabi has spread out that work, treating picking, sorting, and packing as three distinct operations: Items are picked in batches according to stock-keeping unit (SKU); those items are then distributed to one side of a put-to-light wall and sorted into cubbies; and finally, workers on the other side of the wall pull items from the cubbies and place them in boxes for individual orders. Systems in Motion automated the process—designing and building the put wall; integrating a new warehouse execution system (WES) powered by its KOZ automation software; and adding a conveyor system to move completed packages from the pack station to the delivery docks.

Among the immediate benefits of the new system: Abel says cabi has increased its picking velocity and reduced the risk of human errors.

SETTLING IN

The facility and process changes have improved customer service and delivered savings for cabi—in leasing expenses, but also thanks to productivity and workflow improvements.

One of cabi’s biggest headaches prior to the move was the difficulty of flexing up and down to meet seasonal staffing requirements, which it did by hiring temporary warehouse help to manage peaks. The manual workflows in the West Coast facility made that difficult. Abel says the process changes and automation in Indianapolis have allowed cabi to maintain a more consistent headcount during both peak and nonpeak periods.

“[The new process] has done a couple of things for us: On the internal fulfillment side, we can maintain a much steadier headcount during peak and nonpeak, allowing us to execute a more consistent experience,” he explains. “And the sorting piece has allowed us to train and onboard team members [faster]. It’s allowed us to move with accuracy very quickly.”

As of November 2025, Abel said cabi was seeing double-digit improvements in productivity and reduced transit times. For example:

• The time from order receipt to delivery improved by 30%.
• Transit times improved by 40%.
• Pick line productivity was up by 50%.
• Demand for temporary staffing was down considerably: In California, the company typically flexed up by about 40% to meet peak demand; in Indianapolis, the company adds about 15% to its headcount to accommodate peak.

On top of all that, Abel says the changes allow cabi to respond faster to clients’ on-demand fashion needs—now and down the road.

“This facility change really served as a springboard for several growth initiatives we wanted to launch,” Abel says. “But we wanted to address the bones of our operation first.”

The new DC gives cabi the agility to do just that.