There was nothing else like Digit on the ProMat floor last year. The manufacturing supply chain event has gradually morphed into a tech show in recent years. Many of the biggest names in the space were present, showcasing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), bin picking arms and automated storage and retrieval systems. But Agility’s small army of bipedal robots were all anyone could talk about. One year later, the conversation has changed. The notion of humanoid robots working in factories no longer feels like some distant fantasy. Certainly, there’s a validation in last week’s $675 million fundraise by competitor Figure. Interest in humanoid robots is at an all-time high, and deep-pocket investors no longer consider it a pipe dream. Videos shot at last March’s event spread wide online, exposing Agility’s robot to its largest audience yet. The demos captured something fundamental about the industrial robotics sector, as highly complex and technically impressive bots repeated the same dull activity over and over — in this case, moving totes back and forth between a wall and conveyor belt. According to Agility co-founder Damion Shelton, it was here that the then-CEO began to explore succession plans. “When we got through ProMat last year, that was really the point where I’m like, ‘okay, the company is very different now than when we founded it,” Shelton told TechCrunch. “That was really the first time we had shown the robotics publicly doing work — but also, frankly, the first time anyone had shown humanoid [robots] doing work. So that was really the catalyst. We kicked off a search process last August.” Two months prior to the event, Agility brought on Apple/iPad vet Aindrea Campbell as COO, to handle the company’s quickly scaling manufacturing plans. Four months later, Shelton’s co-founder, Jonathan Hurst, stepped down from the CTO role, transitioning to the more research-focused chief robotics officer position. Melonee Wise — who had most recently worked at Zebra after the logistics firm acquired her AMR startup, Fetch — replaced Hurst.
Full feature : Current and former CEO of Agility Robotics describe their roadmap for humanoids, artificial intelligence, robotics, and competition.
