Home GXO Plans Up to 1,000 Apptronik Apollo Humanoids. The Letter of Intent Hinges on 2027 Trials

GXO Plans Up to 1,000 Apptronik Apollo Humanoids. The Letter of Intent Hinges on 2027 Trials

GXO signed a letter of intent with Apptronik for up to 1,000 Apollo humanoid robots over four years, with trials from 2027 and a first North American deployment in late 2027 under a robots-as-a-service model. No price, site or KPI was disclosed.

byBrandon Cook

November 12, 2026

White Apptronik Apollo 2 humanoid robot holding a packaged item over a cardboard box and grey totes at a packing table in a warehouse, with shelving and a worker in the background

Apptronik's Apollo 2 at a packing station, from Apptronik's logistics (3PL) page. Promotional photo, not taken at a GXO site. Image: Apptronik.

GXO Logistics wants up to 1,000 of Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid robots in its warehouses over the next four years. The world’s largest pure-play contract logistics company, by its own description, said on November 12, 2026 that it has signed a letter of intent with Apptronik to expand Apollo trials in live operations starting in 2027, with a first North American deployment planned for late 2027 under a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) model.

It comes 17 days after GXO expanded its deal with Agility Robotics, an announcement that came with no robot count. This one comes with a ceiling. But the GXO Apptronik announcement is a letter of intent, not a purchase order. The 1,000 figure is a ceiling, every step depends on trial results the two companies will judge against their own KPIs, and neither side disclosed a price, a contract value or the first site.

Quick answer

What: GXO and Apptronik signed a letter of intent (LOI), announced November 12, 2026, to expand trials of the Apollo humanoid across picking, case and tote movement, packing and sortation, and to build a RaaS framework for deployment at scale.
How many, when: “up to 1,000” Apollo robots over the next four years, with initial deployment in North America in late 2027. Trials begin in 2027.
Status: intent, not a firm order. The rollout is “subject to the success of the deployments” and to meeting jointly agreed productivity, safety and operational KPIs.
The catch: no price, contract value, site, customer or per-year robot count was disclosed, and the KPIs themselves aren’t public.

Checked against GXO’s November 12, 2026 release and GXO’s and Apptronik’s earlier announcements on November 12, 2026. Details and sources below.

What the GXO Apptronik letter of intent covers

According to GXO’s release, distributed on GlobeNewswire at 7:00 a.m. ET, the LOI is meant “to expand development of Apptronik technology for deployment at scale through a Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.” Under it, the companies will widen joint trials of Apollo in live warehouse operations across goods-to-person and person-to-goods picking, case and tote movement, packing and sortation.

The release describes a gated process rather than a delivery schedule. Beginning in 2027, the trials “will validate the safety, security and technical requirements for scaled deployment,” with each use case “assessed and sequenced against jointly agreed productivity, safety and operational KPIs.” Only “subject to the success of the deployments and the ability to meet agreed performance, safety and operational KPIs” do the companies “intend to progress toward global rollout of up to 1,000 Apollo humanoid robots over the next four years.” The commercial framework “is expected to follow a RaaS structure.”

Those are careful words. “Intend,” “expected” and “up to” are the language of a plan both sides can walk back if the robots don’t hit the numbers. The release doesn’t name a GXO site, a GXO customer, a first-year robot count, a monthly fee or a total value,. “Humanoid robots are the latest evolution of intelligent automation,” GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher said in the release. Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas said the work is “measured against real operational KPIs in live facilities.”

Where this started: a 2024 lab proof of concept

GXO first announced Apptronik on June 20, 2024, calling it “an early-stage proof-of-concept program” in which the companies were evaluating Apollo “in a lab setting” before sending it to a U.S. distribution center “once ready.” At the time, GXO described Apollo as 5 feet 8 inches tall, able to carry 55 pounds and running on swappable batteries.

Today’s release fills in what happened since, in GXO’s words: earlier in 2026, Apollo “wrapped a successful pilot deployment with GXO in the U.S. focused on autonomous picking for small consumer goods,” and the two companies have run data collection and “live autonomous evaluations on more than 50 different logistics tasks” in Apptronik’s Robot Park, the Austin training facility we described in our Apollo 2 and Robot Park report. GXO hasn’t published the pilot’s site, duration, robot count or results, so “successful” is GXO’s own assessment. Apptronik’s June 30, 2026 Apollo 2 announcement also said its robots collect data at customers including GXO “through a combination of teleoperation and autonomous execution.” The new release says the 50-task evaluations were autonomous; it doesn’t say how much of the earlier data collection was teleoperated.

GXO’s own short video from the 2024 announcement, posted to its official YouTube channel the same day, shows a GXO-branded Apollo handling cartons between pallet racks. It’s a promotional clip from the start of the program, not footage of the 2026 pilot.

Video: GXO. “GXO & Apptronik” from the official GXO YouTube channel (watch on YouTube).

What 1,000 robots means at GXO’s scale

A thousand humanoids would be a big fleet by today’s standards, when most humanoid makers don’t publish customer-site robot counts at all (see our humanoid production numbers explainer). For GXO, it’s small. The company says it has more than 150,000 team members across more than 1,000 facilities. Even the full 1,000 Apollo robots would average out to less than one robot per GXO facility, or about one for every 150 employees, by our calculation. Spread evenly over four years, it would be about 250 robots a year, though nothing in the release says the rollout is even, and a late-2027 start leaves roughly three years for most of it, by our reading of the dates.

That’s a reason to read the number as a scale-up option, not a staffing plan. GXO is buying the right to grow a fleet if Apollo proves itself task by task, which is how contract logistics companies already treat other automation. The release says the trials will show how humanoids “can work alongside existing automation and GXO team members,” and the RaaS model means GXO can, in its words, scale “through a flexible, service-based offering” instead of buying robots outright.

GXO now has two humanoid tracks: Agility and Apptronik

The Apptronik news lands 17 days after GXO’s other humanoid announcement. On October 26, GXO and Agility Robotics said Agility’s Digit would expand from GXO’s Flowery Branch, Georgia, warehouse to two more U.S. sites, in Statesville, North Carolina, and Lebanon, Tennessee, starting in early 2027, with the current Digit 4 going in first (our GXO and Agility expansion story has the details). That deal named sites but no robot count. The Apptronik deal names a robot count but no sites.

The two arrangements also sit at different stages. Agility’s work at GXO is a commercial agreement that builds on a multi-year RaaS contract signed in June 2024. Apptronik’s is still a letter of intent heading into a new round of trials. On the readiness scale we use, Apollo at GXO has moved from proof of concept to a completed pilot, and the LOI is an agreement to test the next step, not a commercial deployment yet.

For a buyer watching this, GXO’s approach is the useful part: run more than one humanoid vendor, assign each to specific workflows, and pay as a service. It also means the vendors are being measured against each other inside the same company. GXO hasn’t said which workflows each robot handles, and it’s possible the two programs never overlap.

What it means for Apptronik

For Apptronik, a named logistics customer with a four-digit ceiling is the kind of signal its investors have been paying for. The company closed a Series A of more than $935 million in February 2026, according to its release at the time (see our robotics funding tracker). Its company description in today’s release says it has “nearly 500 employees,” up from the more than 350 it gave in June.

The deal also arrives two days after Google DeepMind said Apptronik’s Apollo 2, running Gemini Robotics 2.5, hit a 96% success rate kitting parts on Mercedes-Benz lines in what DeepMind called a proof of concept, a figure with no published denominator (our Gemini Robotics 2.5 analysis). GXO’s release doesn’t mention DeepMind, Gemini Robotics or which software will run the GXO robots, and it doesn’t say whether the trials will use Apollo 2 or a later model.

What we still don’t know

The money. No RaaS rate, contract value or minimum commitment was disclosed.
The KPIs. The release says they’re “jointly agreed” but doesn’t list a single target, such as picks per hour, uptime or intervention rate.
The sites and customers. Only “North America” is named for the first deployment; the rollout is described as global.
The robot. GXO says “Apollo,” not which generation, and nothing about remote assistance or teleoperation in live operations.
The timeline after 2027. “Over the next four years” has no yearly milestones.

The next useful facts would be the first site name, the first robot count in live operations, or any KPI the companies are willing to publish. Until then, the safest reading is that GXO has reserved room for a large Apollo fleet and set conditions that Apollo still has to meet.

Frequently asked questions

How many Apptronik robots is GXO buying?

None yet, firmly. GXO and Apptronik signed a letter of intent that sets out a path to “up to 1,000” Apollo humanoid robots over the next four years, but only if 2027 trials meet jointly agreed productivity, safety and operational KPIs.

When will Apptronik’s Apollo start working in GXO warehouses?

The expanded trials begin in 2027, and GXO says initial deployment is planned for North America in late 2027. Apollo has already completed a pilot with GXO in the U.S. focused on autonomous picking of small consumer goods, according to GXO.

What is a robots-as-a-service model?

Under robots-as-a-service (RaaS), the customer pays for robots as an ongoing service, usually a recurring fee that covers the robot, software and support, instead of buying the machines outright. GXO says its Apptronik framework is expected to follow a RaaS structure but hasn’t disclosed any rate.

What tasks will Apollo do for GXO?

The trials cover goods-to-person and person-to-goods picking, case and tote movement, packing and sortation. Each use case will be assessed and sequenced against agreed KPIs before it’s scaled.

Does GXO also use Agility Robotics’ Digit?

Yes. GXO has used Digit under a robots-as-a-service agreement since 2024, and on October 26, 2026 it said Digit will expand to sites in Statesville, North Carolina, and Lebanon, Tennessee, starting in early 2027. The Apptronik letter of intent is a separate program.