{
  "id": 15605503,
  "title": "The Robot I Didn’t Expect to Build",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/19/the-robot-i-didnt-expect-to-build",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-19T13:00:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "IEEE Spectrum",
    "slug": "ieee-spectrum",
    "url": "https://spectrum.ieee.org/agility-robotics-digit-5-redesign"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Agility Robotics, the company I co-founded in 2015 from my robotics lab at Oregon State University, has recently launched Digit 5. This humanoid robot is the first designed to safely and economically perform useful work at scale, potentially bringing tens of thousands of humanoid workers into the real world. Digit 5 is engineered to lift 23-kilogram bins onto high shelves and can run for 90 minutes on a single charge, making it ideal for heavy warehouse tasks that are physically demanding or monotonous for humans. However, it is heavier and bulkier than expected, and its movements are less graceful compared to its predecessors. Agility Robotics has taken a different path to deliver a commercially useful product, diverging from the initial vision I had when starting the company.",
  "summary": "Agility Robotics , the company I cofounded out of my robotics lab at Oregon State University in 2015, has just launched Digit 5 . It’s designed to be the first humanoid robot that can safely and economically do useful work at scale, allowing us to bring tens of thousands of humanoid workers into the real world. Engineered to lift 23-kilogram bins onto high shelves and with a battery that can run…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}