AGCO Signs Agility Robotics for a 2027 Digit Pilot in Hesston, Kansas, With No Robot Count

AGCO and Agility Robotics signed a commercial agreement on Oct. 20 for a pilot of the Digit humanoid at AGCO's Hesston, Kansas, plant, expected to begin in 2027. Neither company says how many robots will be involved or what AGCO is paying.

The tractor maker will start with sorting and stacking parts and placing totes into storage, according to Agility's release, dated Duluth, Ga. The release calls these "key assembly and production operations", though the two tasks it lists are materials handling. The Robot Report ran the news on Oct. 21 and also found no robot count, no Digit specifications and no units-deployed figure.

What the release says and omits

Thomas Enghof, AGCO's director of manufacturing technology, describes humanoid robotics and AI as "essential 'teammates' in building flexible, intelligent factories" that can take on "repetitive, strenuous or hazardous tasks." Daniel Diez, Agility's chief business officer, calls the deployment a chance to "demonstrate how advanced robotics can create measurable impact across modern production environments."

The release does not say which Digit version will be used. It gives no plant size or workforce for Hesston, and it discloses no financial terms, only that a commercial agreement exists. The Robot Report lists Toyota, GXO Logistics and Schaeffler as other Agility customers.

Item	In the release?
Plant	Hesston, Kansas
Start	2027
Tasks	Sorting and stacking parts, placing totes
Number of robots	No
Price or terms	No
Digit version	No

The Digit 5 numbers are Agility's own

The Robot Report notes that Agility unveiled Digit 5 the previous month, with new legs, upgraded batteries and a broader safety design. Silicon Canals lists the manufacturer's figures: 284 pounds, 5 feet 11 inches, 50 pounds repeatedly lifted (about 40 percent above Digit 4), about 90 minutes per charge and a nine-minute recharge.

The number that matters here is not the 90 minutes but the ratio. Ninety minutes of work against nine of charging is 10 to 1, up from 2 to 1 on Digit 4, and the company builds a claim of more than 20 productive hours a day from it. Silicon Canals' correction puts the idealised arithmetic at 21.8 hours of runtime and 2.2 of charging, before maintenance, faults or handoffs. It is a calculation, not a measured shift, much as BMW's 464 kW peak charging figure sits beside an unpublished average.

Early customer access to Digit 5 is planned for the first half of 2027, with general availability by the end of 2027, so the Hesston pilot's start year falls inside that window. Neither release says that AGCO will receive Digit 5.

1. Digit 42 hours worked per hour charged
2. Digit 510 hours worked per hour charged

Source: Silicon Canals, Sept. 22, 2026, updated Oct. 1; manufacturer figures

What is verified in the field

Silicon Canals reports that a GXO facility recorded 98 percent accuracy for Digit 4 sorting totes across more than 100,000 units, a figure for Digit 4 and not for Digit 5. It also reports that Amazon bought five Digit units for $1.05 million, which works out to $210,000 a robot (the per-unit figure is The Terminal's division, and the article does not date the purchase). No Digit 5 price has been given.

Silicon Canals adds that Agility reports more than $300 million in multi-year orders that depend on unspecified contract milestones. No independent customer-floor validation of Digit 5 has been published, per the same article.

A pilot differs from a deployment, and a pilot with an unstated robot count is the weakest form of the claim. Eka Robotics' $150 million round drew the same objection about unnamed customers.

Agility is merging with Churchill Capital Corp XI, expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, after which it is to trade on Nasdaq as AGLT, per The Robot Report. What would change this read is a robot count and a duty-cycle figure from Hesston once the pilot begins in 2027.