AGCO Will Pilot Agility's Digit in Kansas in 2027, and Neither Company Says How Many Robots

AGCO will begin a pilot of Agility Robotics' Digit humanoid at its Hesston, Kansas plant in 2027, the two companies said on October 20. Neither disclosed how many robots the pilot involves, what AGCO is paying, or how long it runs.

The press release, distributed through PR Newswire from Duluth, Georgia, describes a commercial agreement. The Robot Report carried the same facts on October 21.

What Digit will actually do at Hesston

The first jobs are sorting and stacking parts and placing totes into storage. The release also says Digit will support "key assembly and production operations" without defining them.

Thomas Enghof, AGCO's director of manufacturing technology, said the robots are about "augmenting human capabilities by absorbing repetitive, strenuous or hazardous tasks". Daniel Diez, Agility's chief business officer, said: "We're excited to work alongside AGCO as they continue to lead the way in agricultural innovation."

Digit runs under Agility Arc, a cloud platform for managing robot fleets. The release says integration needs no major infrastructure changes or costly facility upgrades. That is a vendor claim, and the pilot has not started.

The numbers are in the SPAC filing, not the release

Agility is merging with the blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp XI. Pulse 2.0 reported on October 15 that the joint Form S-4 became effective with the SEC on October 13, and that Churchill's shareholders vote on November 2. Closing is expected in November, under the ticker AGLT on Nasdaq.

The deal values Agility at $2.5 billion before the transaction, announced June 24. It is expected to raise more than $620 million gross, about $424 million from Churchill's trust if nobody redeems and about $200 million from a stock sale led by Foxconn.

The operating figures below are Agility's own projections and claims as reported by Pulse 2.0. No revenue figure appeared in the sources cited here.

Metric	Figure	Basis
Real-world operating hours, earlier Digit generations	More than 65,000	Agility claim
Committed orders behind Digit 5	More than $300 million	Subject to contract milestones
Customer facilities with committed deployments	9 now, up to 25 by end of 2027	Agility projection
Prospective customer pipeline	More than 30, growing to about 100	Agility projection
RoboFab capacity, Salem, Oregon	Up to 10,000 robots a year	Design capacity

1. Now9 facilities
2. End of 2027 (maximum)25 facilities

Source: Pulse 2.0, October 15, 2026, citing Agility's S-4 materials

The number that matters here is not the 10,000-robot factory but the nine facilities. A plant sized for 10,000 units a year against nine committed sites means the capacity is a bet on the pipeline converting, not a response to orders in hand.

Pilot is not production

The $300 million in committed orders is for Digit 5, which Agility showed in September with new legs, upgraded batteries and a revised safety architecture, according to The Robot Report. Pulse 2.0 puts early access in early 2027, which is also when the AGCO pilot is meant to start. Whether Hesston gets Digit 5 or an earlier version is not given.

Other named Digit customers in the release are Toyota, GXO and Schaeffler. No source cited here gives a count of robots working at any of them.

What would change this read

AGCO's pilot will say little until it reports hours worked, totes moved and interventions per shift, none of which the release promises. A pilot with four robots and one with forty are different customers.

The next dated checkpoint is the November 2 Churchill XI vote, where the redemption figure shows how many holders took their cash instead of Agility stock. Related: Eka's 1,500 picks an hour shows how the same gap between lab and floor plays out in warehouse arms, and Pollen Robotics' Microduck shows what a $399 robot looks like at the other end of the price range.