Agility Robotics, FORT Robotics Sign MOU to Advance Digit 5 Safety

Agility Robotics, a humanoid robotics and physical AI company, and FORT Robotics, a safety platform company, signed a memorandum of understanding on October 1, 2026, establishing a strategic partnership around the safety infrastructure of Digit 5, Agility’s next-generation humanoid robot, the companies announced. The agreement includes a jointly developed off-robot interface called the Offboard Safety Bridge.

Offboard Safety Bridge and Operating Framework

The partnership deepens a multi-year engagement that grew from a single custom hardware component into an integrated, three-part safety architecture consisting of a safety pendant, on-robot communications, and off-robot interfaces connecting Digit with external safety systems. The off-robot interface, jointly developed by FORT and Agility, is the Offboard Safety Bridge, designed to extend Agility’s cooperative-safety approach beyond the robot itself and enhance the onboard safety architecture already planned for Digit 5.

The MOU also establishes an operating framework for how the two companies will work together as Digit 5 begins deployment and scales into more complex commercial environments, covering joint hardware development, solutions engineering, regulatory compliance, and deployment support. The companies described the framework as reinforcing a shared commitment to a rigorous, transparent safety architecture as humanoid robots take on more tasks in close proximity to people in industrial environments such as warehouses, manufacturing, and logistics. By combining an onboard approach with FORT’s offboard communication infrastructure, the companies said they aim to give customers a more complete safety and efficiency envelope as Digit takes on new tasks across a facility.

Pendant Sled Extends Multi-Year FORT Engagement

Agility has embedded FORT’s technology in several past versions of Digit and engaged FORT earlier in 2026 to deliver the pendant sled, a custom-built holder for Digit’s tablet that integrates emergency-stop and enabling-device functionality. Like Digit 4, Digit 5 is designed to operate autonomously during normal work, and the pendant will be used to monitor the robot while giving the customer a redundant manual override for safety purposes during setup, maintenance, or an unexpected situation. The companies said the pendant provides an additional independent layer of protection, maintains continuity of safety coverage as deployments expand, and complements Digit 5’s anticipated onboard Safe Human Detection system.

“Every layer we’ve added with FORT has made Digit’s safety system more resilient, not just more redundant,” said Pras Velagapudi, chief technology officer at Agility Robotics. Velagapudi described the Offboard Safety Bridge as an example of what the partnership is building: safety infrastructure that works whether input comes from onboard the robot or from the environment around it, so the robot can be trusted to operate near people in a more diverse set of environments.

Deployment Expectations and Digit 5 Background

“Agility has established itself as the leader in humanoid robotics by focusing on the only metrics that matter: safety and ROI,” said Samuel Reeves, founder and CEO of FORT Robotics. Reeves said that physical AI earns trust only when the safety layer around it is as capable and as accountable as the robot itself, and that formalizing the relationship as a strategic partnership reflects how central that architecture has become to operating humanoid robots safely in close proximity with people.

The companies said they expect the expanded partnership to support Agility’s ongoing deployments with enterprise customers and to inform the safety architecture of Digit 5 and future generations of the platform as the robot takes on a wider range of environments and tasks.

Agility unveiled Digit 5 on September 15, 2026 as its first humanoid robot engineered for cooperatively safe work at scale, designed to work in close proximity to people without the physical safety barriers required by traditional automation. Its onboard safety architecture spans safe human detection, visual and auditory safety cues, and safe motion control overseen by an independent safety controller. Agility reports that Digit’s predecessors have logged more than 65,000 hours of operation across customer sites including GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. Early access to Digit 5 is expected to begin in the first half of 2027, with general availability for manufacturing, warehouse, and distribution operators expected by the end of 2027, according to Agility.