# Where humanoids actually work: 52 deployments, counted > We track 52 humanoid deployments at named sites. Eighteen are in car plants, exactly half are live, and six say how many robots turned up. Those six add up to 41 machines. Published: 2026-09-05 Section: News Author: Geert Jan van Vlastuin, Editor, humanoid.observer Canonical: https://humanoid.observer/blog/where-humanoids-actually-work-52-deployments/ Licence: editorial text all rights reserved. The underlying data is CC BY 4.0 at https://humanoid.observer/data/. Cite as: humanoid.observer, https://humanoid.observer/blog/where-humanoids-actually-work-52-deployments/, accessed . --- Humanoid robots work in 52 places we can name and source. Eighteen of those are car plants. Twenty-six are live today, as an active deployment or a pilot. Six disclose how many robots are on site, and those six add up to 41 machines. That is the whole counted total, in an industry that talks in thousands. ## Car plants first, then everything else | Sector | Rows | Active | Pilot | Announced | Unclear | Ended | Rows with a unit count | Units | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Automotive | 18 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 20 | | Other manufacturing and services | 11 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | | Logistics | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | | Entertainment | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 16 | | Retail | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | | Research | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | Home | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Healthcare | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Hospitality | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Automotive is more than a third of the record, and 11 of its 18 rows are in China. BYD, Zeekr, Geely Auto, Audi FAW NEV, BAIC, Dongfeng Liuzhou and Nio host [UBTech](/companies/ubtech/)'s [Walker S1](/robots/ubtech-walker-s1/) and [Walker S](/robots/ubtech-walker-s/). Mercedes-Benz runs [Apollo](/robots/apptronik-apollo/). BMW ran [Figure 02](/robots/figure-02/). Hyundai has announced the electric [Atlas](/robots/boston-dynamics-atlas-electric/). Schaeffler has both [Digit](/robots/agility-digit/) and [4NE-1](/robots/neura-4ne-1/). Magna took [Phoenix](/robots/sanctuary-phoenix/). UBTech alone accounts for 9 of the 52 rows. China (22) and the United States (16) hold 38 rows; ten other countries share 14. What the robots do there is narrow. Of the 34 industrial rows, 24 describe handling, inspection, sorting or moving totes. Six mention assembly, and it is light: [Xpeng Iron](/robots/xpeng-iron/) drives screws on Xpeng's own P7 line, Walker S applies labels and checks seat belts at Dongfeng. The job a humanoid does is to pick something up, carry it, and look at it. ## Half the rows are live, half are not The status column reads 11 active, 15 pilot, 8 announced, 8 unclear, 10 ended. Active plus pilot is 26, half. A pilot on this site is a robot doing work at a named customer's site for a limited time. It counts as a deployment, and in the Humanoid Index a named pilot scores like a named active row: 20 of the 50 deployment points, 28 for three or more. It cannot climb higher: the 32 to 50 band needs verified unit counts of ten, a hundred and a thousand, and no robot in our record gets there. Announced means a customer name and no robot yet: Hyundai, the China Mobile tender, [1X](/companies/1x/)'s consumer deliveries. Unclear means we found the start and not the present: Sanctuary at Magna, the [Optimus](/robots/tesla-optimus-gen-2/) at the Tesla Diner, Amazon's Digit test, three UBTech car plants. The ended row that matters most is Figure 02 at BMW Spartanburg, a production run Figure describes as 11 months, from August 2024 until [Figure AI](/companies/figure-ai/) moved to [Figure 03](/robots/figure-03/) in late 2025. The fleet size was never published. ## Six rows put a number on it The 41: twenty Walker S at Dongfeng Liuzhou, an order announced in February 2024, status pilot. Sixteen [Unitree H1](/robots/unitree-h1/) dancing at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala on 28 January 2025, for one night. Two Digits at Ford in 2020. One [Robonaut 2](/robots/nasa-robonaut-2/) on the ISS from 2011 to 2018. One Phoenix at a Mark's store in Langley for one week in March 2023, teleoperated, 110 tasks. One Optimus serving popcorn at the Tesla Diner in July 2025, continuation unclear. Sixteen of the 41 are a dance and 20 are an order. Only the Dongfeng row is still live. Of the 15 rows we mark autonomous, one discloses units, and it is the dance. The thousands live in a different column. Our notes record the claims: UBTech planned about 500 [Walker S2](/robots/ubtech-walker-s2/) deliveries in 2025, [Unitree](/companies/unitree/) is widely reported to have sold thousands of [G1](/robots/unitree-g1/) units to labs with no official count, [Galbot](/companies/galbot/) targets 100 unstaffed pharmacies. Each is a plan, a target or a report, not a count at a named site, so none of it goes in the units column. The only machines here with real volume behind them are [Pepper](/robots/softbank-pepper/), about 27,000 built before production stopped in 2021, and [NAO](/robots/aldebaran-nao/), more than 13,000 sold by 2018. One is 120 cm tall, the other 58 cm. Neither is what anyone means today by a humanoid at work. ## Mixed is the most common word for autonomy The autonomy column reads 31 mixed, 15 autonomous, 2 teleoperated, 4 unknown. Mixed means the maker claims autonomy and the footage or fine print keeps a human in the loop. In automotive it is 14 of 18. The two teleoperated rows are both Phoenix, whose own record lists teleoperation as yes. Nine of the 15 autonomous rows are commercial work, by Figure 02, Apollo, Digit, [Galbot G1](/robots/galbot-g1/) and the announced Atlas. The other six are three Pepper rows, NAO, ASIMO and the dance. The strongest row is Digit at GXO's Spanx site in Flowery Branch: a pilot from October 2023, a multi year contract from June 2024, autonomous, still active, fleet size not published. The robot records add a layer. Their teleoperation field says yes for [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/), Optimus Gen 2, Phoenix and Robonaut 2, partial for Walker S1, Walker S2, Digit, Apollo, Atlas, 4NE-1, the G1 and the H1, and no for Figure 02, Figure 03, Galbot G1 and Pepper. So NEO's household chores may be done by a remote operator; 1X's own 2025 home alpha is recorded as largely teleoperated. ## How to read the next deployment announcement Look for four things. A customer name: 46 of our 52 rows have one, and an undisclosed customer is a claim, not a deployment. A unit count at the site: 6 of 52 have one, and a plan, a target or an order is not a count. A status word: pilot is real work with an end date, announced is no robot yet. And the autonomy claim, checked against the machine's teleoperation record. If the two disagree, believe the record. If you are deciding whether to buy, invest or bet a production line on a humanoid, the sourced evidence is 41 machines at customer sites, 20 of them in one order. Everything larger is a forecast. ## Sources - [UBTech](https://www.ubtrobot.com/), UBTech - [Figure news](https://www.figure.ai/news), Figure AI - [GXO newsroom](https://gxo.com/news/), GXO - [Agility Robotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agility_Robotics), Wikipedia - [Sanctuary AI news](https://www.sanctuary.ai/news), Sanctuary AI - [Unitree](https://www.unitree.com/), Unitree - [Amazon announces 2 new ways it's using robots to assist employees](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazon-introduces-new-robotics-solutions), Amazon - [Pepper (robot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_(robot)), Wikipedia