Bloomberg

Peggy Johnson on the humanoid that gets paid to work

Peggy Johnson· CEO of Agility Robotics at Agility Robotics
·~10 min·English·Bloomberg
RoboticsAI Company
TL;DR

Peggy Johnson says <strong>Digit 5 can work beside people outside the safety barrier</strong>, extending Agility Robotics' focus on the dull, hard-to-fill jobs a humanoid can be paid to do.

01The Headline Change

The Safety Cage Comes Down

<strong>Digit 5 is the first humanoid built to leave the safety cage</strong> and share the same floor as human workers.

digit five is the first humanoid to be able to work in close proximity to other humans.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
Once the robot and the worker share a floor, every person who walks past becomes part of the robot's job: handling interruptions stops being an edge case and turns into a core design requirement.
02Safety by Design

The Robot Yields, Not the Human

<strong>When a person comes close, the robot lowers itself to the ground</strong>, waits, then stands and resumes work.

And then once gone, the robot will stand up again and resume its work.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
Making the robot, not the person, give way is a liability decision: it puts the burden of avoidance on the machine, which is exactly the posture a facilities buyer needs before letting robots off the leash.
03From Task to Role

One Robot, the Whole Workflow

<strong>Out of the cage, one robot can take on a full workflow</strong> instead of a single fixed task, moving from station to station.

an entire workflow can now be achieved, because the robot can move from station to station and take on different tasks.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
The jump from automating a step to covering a role is what lets Agility price Digit against a salary rather than against a conveyor belt, a far larger budget line for any customer.
04Use-Case Strategy

You Don't Get Paid to Dance

<strong>Agility starts with dull, hard-to-fill jobs, not demos</strong>, because a dancing robot is fun to watch but does not earn a paycheck.

Dancing robots are lots of fun to watch. Um, but generally you don't get paid to work.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
By entering on tasks nobody wants, Agility competes against an empty chair rather than a human worker, which is both the easiest automation sale and the one least likely to draw a jobs backlash.
05The Market

Filling Jobs No One Will Take

<strong>Unfilled US manufacturing jobs are projected to reach nearly 1.9 million by 2033</strong>, up from over 400,000 in 2025, and Digit is pitched to fill roles people will not take.

We have younger people who want digital jobs and not these manual, dirty, repetitive, um, very mind numbing kind of work.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
A rising vacancy count proves the demand exists on paper; whether Digit captures it still turns on how many of those specific tasks it can actually be taught to do.
06Supply Chain

Made in Oregon, on Purpose

<strong>Digit is built in Salem, Oregon on a deliberately US and allied supply chain</strong>, with lidar and rare-earth metals the supply needs Johnson still flags.

from the start, we have manufactured in the United States, in Salem, Oregon, and we have intentionally kept an eye on our supply chain to largely be U.S. and allied focused.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
A domestic supply chain reads as insurance priced into the unit: it likely costs more per robot, but it reduces the tariff and export-control exposure that can strand a hardware company.
07Going Public

The Quickest Way to Market

<strong>Agility is going public through a SPAC to reach the market fastest</strong>, backed by more than $300 million in multi-year orders.

choosing the route we go into through the Spac, which is the most efficient, quickest way to market.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
The SPAC is a speed bet, not a valuation bet: moving fast turns Agility's reported order book into a delivery test, and getting to scale before rivals is how it hopes to set the enterprise-humanoid standards buyers will judge everyone against.
08Differentiation

Uptime Is the Product

<strong>Fifty-pound lifts, swappable hands, and a three-shift battery</strong> are the specs Peggy Johnson says let Digit actually get paid to work.

We have hands that can be replaced with different kinds of tools, uh, swappable end effectors and a battery that allows for three shifts of work with one robot.

— Peggy Johnson, Bloomberg
Key Insight
The spec sheet is really an availability argument: a robot that runs three shifts and recharges in minutes is sold on uptime, which is the number a facilities buyer actually underwrites.