Deployments
GXO signs letter of intent with Apptronik for up to 1,000 Apollo humanoids, if trials succeed
Contract logistics company GXO said on 12 November that it has signed a letter of intent with Apptronik to expand trials of the Apollo humanoid robot and to work out a robotics-as-a-service model for deploying it at scale. Under the plan described in GXO's press release, the companies intend to move toward a global rollout of up to 1,000 Apollo robots over the next four years, with the first deployment in North America in late 2027.
That number is conditional. The release says the rollout depends on the trials succeeding and on Apollo meeting performance, safety and operational KPIs agreed by both companies. No financial terms were disclosed, and the agreement is a letter of intent rather than a purchase order. Unite.AI described it as a conditional path toward 1,000 robots.
From 2027 the trials will put Apollo into live operations across several warehouse workflows: goods-to-person and person-to-goods picking, moving cases and totes, packing and sortation. Each use case will be assessed and sequenced separately against the agreed productivity, safety and operational measures, and the trials will also test how the robot works alongside GXO staff and existing automation, the companies said.
The partnership dates to a 2024 proof-of-concept programme. GXO said Apollo completed a pilot in the United States earlier this year focused on autonomous picking of small consumer goods, and that the two companies have run data collection and live autonomous evaluations on more than 50 logistics tasks at Apptronik's Robot Park training facility.
GXO already works with other humanoid makers: HumanoidBeat reported in October that it is adding Agility Robotics' Digit at two more sites. Apptronik's Apollo was also in the news this week when Google DeepMind said Gemini Robotics 2.5 ran a proof of concept with Apollo 2 on Mercedes-Benz lines.