GXO signs letter of intent for up to 1,000 Apptronik Apollo humanoids over four years

GXO Logistics has signed a letter of intent with Apptronik that could lead to a global rollout of up to 1,000 Apollo humanoid robots over the next four years, the companies said on Nov. 12. Trials in live operations start in 2027 and cover goods-to-person and person-to-goods picking, case and tote moves, packing and sortation. The first deployments are planned for North America in late 2027, and GXO would pay for the robots under a Robots-as-a-Service model.

Two weeks apart, GXO has given its two humanoid suppliers opposite kinds of deal. On Oct. 26 it added two sites for Agility Robotics' Digit, which GXO first deployed at a warehouse in Flowery Branch, Georgia, under a multi-year RaaS agreement signed in June 2024, but named no robot count. Apptronik gets a count without a contract: the 1,000 is a ceiling in a letter of intent, and the rollout depends on Apollo meeting performance, safety and operating KPIs the companies agreed. The 2027 trials are a contest for volume, and the robot that clears GXO's benchmarks first gets it.

The ceiling is less than one Apollo per warehouse

The number is small against GXO itself. The contract logistics company runs more than 1,000 facilities with more than 150,000 staff, so even the full rollout would average fewer than one Apollo per site after four years.

Apptronik brings data from Robot Park, its training facility, where the two companies have run data collection and live autonomous evaluations on more than 50 logistics tasks. An earlier pilot at a GXO site in the U.S. focused on autonomous picking of small consumer goods; the partnership itself began as a proof of concept in 2024.

"GXO has the network and the operating discipline to take this technology to real scale," said Jeff Cardenas, Apptronik's chief executive. GXO's CEO, Patrick Kelleher, called humanoids "the latest evolution of intelligent automation."