Toyota Deploys Digit Humanoids in Canada

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada has quietly moved from pilot to production, rolling out Agility Robotics’ Digit humanoids to help load and unload totes at its Ontario plants after a year-long trial — with a plan to add seven more Digits and test new use cases if performance holds.

Engineering documentation shows three Digits participated in the initial piloting phase at TMMC, a program conducted in collaboration with GXO Logistics under a robotics-as-a-service framework. The company says the Digits will operate alongside the existing material-handling stack, taking on repetitive, physically demanding tasks that trim cycle time and improve the team member experience. Toyota’s move is notable because it marks one of the clearest examples to date of humanoid robots migrating from demo reels to real production work inside a major automotive manufacturer. Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada is a behemoth in its own right — the Cambridge and Woodstock plants produced more than 535,000 vehicles in 2025 and employ over 8,500 people. The automaker also announced it will build the sixth generation of the RAV4 at the Cambridge complex, backed by a $1.1 billion investment.

The three Digits now operating in the pilot are slated to be followed by seven more, tasked with loading and unloading totes from an automated tugger. In addition to this workflow, Toyota and Agility say they will explore additional use cases if the expanded deployment proves successful. The collaboration underscores a broader industry shift: humanoid forms are being tested for tasks that mix dexterity with reach, in environments designed for humans rather than specialized industrial robots.

From a readiness perspective, the project traces a clear progression: lab concepts seeded into a year-long on-site validation, then a staged expansion into a full deployment within a high-velocity manufacturing environment. The timeline and scale reflect not just a proof of concept, but a measured commitment to the technology’s reliability in real-world tasks that are typically people-heavy. The RaaS approach—robots paid for as a service rather than bought outright—addresses a core friction in industry adoption: capital expenditure and maintenance liability.

Two critical questions for the broader industrial robotics community remain. First, the precise specifications of Digit used in Toyota’s deployment are not published in the release. DOF counts and payload capacity for Digit, as well as power, runtime, and charging specifics, are not disclosed in the reporting. For practitioners, this matters because it shapes expectations about what the robots can handle in a busy warehouse, how often they require intervention, and how they integrate with existing automation like conveyors and tugger systems. The lack of disclosed specs is common in early deployments, but it also means operators must weigh trust in the system against direct field performance data before broad scaling.

Second, the real practical constraints will surface after six to twelve months of sustained operation. Do Digits consistently meet takt times without frequent human-assisted resets? How do maintenance cycles align with production schedules? What’s the bill of materials for scheduled service, and how much downtime is acceptable when a single robot trips on a misloaded tote or a misaligned pallet?

Two–to–four practitioner insights stand out. One, the economics of RaaS continue to appeal for plant services-heavy operations, shifting capital risk away from the OEM and allowing rapid iteration. Two, the human-robot interface remains a bottleneck: even with a generous tolerance for automation, humans still set the tempo, and the robot’s ability to adapt to varied tote shapes and packaging will be a critical test. Three, safety and ergonomics will keep being scrutinized: joint torque limits, collision avoidance, and reliable hand-off with human workers are non-negotiable for live production. Four, this deployment’s success will hinge on integration with upstream and downstream logistics—dock scheduling, tugger routing, and real-time inventory visibility.

If Toyota can sustain results across the seven-new-humanoid expansion and keep the integration smooth, Digit could move beyond tote handling to more nuanced material-handling tasks. The question remains whether this is a first step in a broader, factory-wide humanoid toolkit or a carefully scoped pilot with a clear end date. For now, the data suggests a cautious, credible step toward human-robot collaboration at a scale Toyota is uniquely positioned to test.

Sources

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada to deploy Agility Robotics’ Digit humanoids