ABB Robots vs Humanoid Pilots: What Works Now

GXO has run 45 humanoid pilots with none in production this year. A look back at AGVs and at the ABB palletizers, cobots and AMRs already on real shifts.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/26/20261 min read

The first automated guided vehicle arrived in 1953, a Barrett Electronics towing tractor that followed a wire strung overhead. Driverless vehicles then spent decades in trials, breakdowns and rework before warehouses and ports treated them as ordinary equipment.

Two driverless container carriers loaded with shipping containers at a port terminal
Two driverless container carriers loaded with shipping containers at a port terminal

Driverless container vehicles at HHLA's Container Terminal Altenwerder, Hamburg. Photo: Wolfgang Klein / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Hamburg's Altenwerder container terminal has used driverless vehicles to move boxes between ship and yard since 2002. They are boring to watch now. Nobody at the quay wonders whether they will turn up for the Monday morning shift.

Large grey GXO warehouse building behind bare trees and bushes
Large grey GXO warehouse building behind bare trees and bushes

A GXO warehouse at Severn Beach, England, February 2026. Photo: Captain Galaxy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Humanoid robots are still in the middle stretch. GXO, the logistics company, has run 45 humanoid pilots, and CEO Patrick Kelleher says none will be in production this year. GXO expects about 20,000 robots across its sites in 2026, and none of them humanoids. He told Fortune the machines need better hands and more speed, and he expects production in roughly two years.

Grey humanoid robot with a glowing blue face visor standing on a patterned carpet
Grey humanoid robot with a glowing blue face visor standing on a patterned carpet

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot on show, 2024. Photo: Sayanesy / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

A column shared by A3 on 23 September made the practical point: if a job is eating labour now, use equipment that has already been through its pilot years. ABB's IRB 660 palletizer is that kind of machine. At Dot's Pretzels, IRB 660 robots stack finished cases onto pallets at the end of the line.

White ABB palletizing robot stacking brown and red cases onto pallets
White ABB palletizing robot stacking brown and red cases onto pallets

ABB IRB 660 robots palletizing cases at Dot's Pretzels. Photo: ABB

ABB's GoFa cobots load and unload machine tools, and a worker can teach one by moving its arm. Flexley Mover AMRs run repeat material routes and find their way with Visual SLAM. You won't see these on a viral video feed, yet they work full shifts in real plants today.

White ABB GoFa cobot arm with a gripper next to metal parts in a machine cell
White ABB GoFa cobot arm with a gripper next to metal parts in a machine cell

An ABB GoFa cobot tending a machine. Photo: ABB

Humanoids will probably get through their awkward middle faster than AGVs did, because AI software improves quickly. I expect them to take the odd jobs that fixed arms and carts cannot reach. For the pallet that needs moving this week, I'd still pick a robot that already works, and a lot of those are ABB arms.

Low white ABB mobile robot on a grey floor in front of large red ABB letters
Low white ABB mobile robot on a grey floor in front of large red ABB letters

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

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