GXO Targets Up to 1,000 Apollo Humanoids If Warehouse Trials Succeed

GXO Logistics announced on November 12, 2026 that it had signed a letter of intent with Apptronik to expand warehouse trials of the Apollo humanoid and develop a Robotics-as-a-Service model, setting a conditional path toward deploying up to 1,000 robots over four years.

The companies intend to make the initial deployment under the plan in North America in late 2027. Progress depends on successful deployments and the robots meeting jointly agreed operating requirements. Robotics-as-a-Service, or RaaS, is expected to give GXO a flexible, service-based commercial structure for expanding use of the robots.

Warehouse Trials and Deployment Conditions

In 2027, the companies plan to move Apollo into live operations spanning goods-to-person and person-to-goods picking, case and tote movement, packing, and sortation. Each use case will be assessed and sequenced against jointly agreed productivity, safety and operational key performance indicators (KPIs).

Sequencing allows individual applications to advance according to their measured results instead of treating every workflow as ready at the same time. The trials will also validate safety, security and technical requirements for scaled deployment.

The trials will examine how Apollo works alongside GXO employees and existing warehouse automation. GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher called humanoid robots “the latest evolution of intelligent automation” and said the expanded work is intended to identify and scale the applications where they can have the greatest impact for customers and team members.

Earlier Research and Warehouse Pilots

The partnership began with a proof-of-concept program announced on June 20, 2024 to find practical warehouse uses for Apollo. In that initial phase, the companies evaluated the robot’s overall performance in a laboratory to refine Apptronik’s AI model, with a move to a U.S. distribution center planned once the technology was ready.

GXO said Apollo completed a U.S. pilot earlier in 2026 centered on autonomous picking of small consumer goods, and described that pilot as successful. The companies have also collected data and conducted live autonomous evaluations covering more than 50 logistics tasks at Apptronik’s Robot Park humanoid training facility.

Apptronik CEO and co-founder Jeff Cardenas said the partnership is measuring humanoid work against operational KPIs in live facilities, and described GXO’s network and operating discipline as a route to real scale. Those priorities make the expanded program a test of deployment management as well as robot capability: the partners must identify where Apollo produces useful work and whether that work can be repeated across a large logistics operation.

Apollo is designed for repetitive, physically demanding warehouse work. GXO expects it to help address labor availability, improve throughput and uptime, and let employees focus on higher-value activities. The letter of intent turns those expectations into a staged business test: Apollo must demonstrate useful performance across several workflows and safe integration with employees and existing automation before a global deployment can follow.