Figure, Atlas, Digit and Apollo are Western humanoids that already work in factories and warehouses. An outside company can almost never buy one of these robots in 2026: the machines go to the manufacturers’ partners and into rental per project. For business, this is a showcase of the coming years — which operations a humanoid takes on first and what a month of its work costs.
How it works
Each robot does one or two narrow operations, but does them every day. At the BMW plant, Figure feeds sheet metal for welding and lays out parts; at GXO, Digit carries containers. The narrow task is a deliberate choice: the robot repeats one movement thousands of times, and engineers polish it until its reliability reaches the level of an assembly line, where every stop costs money.
Their forms all differ. Digit has backward-bending knees, like a bird, and simple arms: its job is to walk and carry. Figure, Atlas and Apollo are closer to human proportions. For all of 2026, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas goes to Hyundai and Google DeepMind. Inside, they all have electric motors in the joints, cameras and neural networks that learn from recorded movements and in simulation.
You can almost never buy such a robot — it is taken as a service. The model is called “robot as a service”: the customer pays monthly, and the manufacturer is responsible for launch, software updates and repairs. Digit is rented out for $8,500 a month plus $25,000 for the launch. For a factory, this is a clear budget line; for the manufacturer, a way to learn from real shifts.
Where it already works
- BMW — Figure feeds sheet metal for welding and lays out parts at the plant
- GXO — Digit carries containers: over 100,000 so far
- About 100 Digit robots at nine sites; customers include Schaeffler and Toyota
- Hyundai and Google DeepMind — they get all of 2026’s Atlas robots
- Apollo from Apptronik — pilots at Mercedes, GXO and Jabil
What to consider
- Not to Russia: American robots are banned from export without a US license, and AbsoTech does not bring them in
- In Vietnam, only a corporate pilot together with the manufacturer is possible — no buying off the shelf
- Only Digit has a public price — from SEC filings; the others have no prices
- A humanoid takes on one or two operations: start with the one that repeats all day without exceptions