Employees at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse near Seattle recently witnessed a glimpse of the future of work—a 5-foot-9-inch robot named Digit.

Developed by Agility Robotics Inc., Digit is designed for a specific task: picking up empty yellow bins from a shelf and transporting them to a conveyor.

Although still in the testing phase, Digit represents a significant technological advancement and places Agility Robotics at the forefront of efforts to create robots that can collaborate with human workers.

Agility Robotics, based in Tangent, Oregon, has practical goals, aiming to produce 10,000 robots annually for deployment in warehouses and storerooms worldwide, Bloomberg reported.

The technologies driving Digit’s capabilities, including affordable and powerful motors, batteries, computer vision, and artificial intelligence, have led to a surge in investment in humanoid robots.

Over the last five years, startups in this emerging field have attracted approximately $1.6 billion in venture capital, with companies like Boston Dynamics Inc., Tesla Inc., 1X Technologies AS, and Apptronik Inc. working on robots that mimic human movements.

In February, Figure AI Inc. announced a $675 million investment round, with support from prominent tech names like Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp., and Nvidia Corp., signaling growing interest in humanoid bot startups.

Written by B.C. Begley