Pilots aren't deployments. This week's humanoid count.

Humanoid Tally Issue #1 · Week ending October 22, 2026 · Researched and drafted with AI help, reviewed and approved by a human

Welcome to the first Humanoid Tally. We have one rule: every robot we count gets a status label: ANNOUNCED, PILOT, PAID, INTERNAL, or NONE VERIFIED. A press release doesn't make something a deployment.

1. Tesla's Optimus: in production, but no outside customers yet

Tesla's Q3 update says Optimus production began on its high-volume lines in Fremont, producing "the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured." On the earnings call, Elon Musk called it "early production." He said reaching the line's 20,000-units-per-week rate will take "at least a year, maybe a little longer," and that deliveries to "companies outside of Tesla" should come around the end of next year (TechCrunch).

Tally status: INTERNAL. No external customer, and no unit count disclosed.

2. Agility adds a pilot, and its SPAC clears the SEC

AGCO, the maker of Fendt and Massey Ferguson, signed a commercial agreement with Agility Robotics to pilot Digit at its Hesston, Kansas plant, sorting and stacking parts and placing totes. It's expected to begin in 2027, so its status is ANNOUNCED (a pilot starting in 2027), not a deployment.

On the money side, the SEC declared Agility's S-4 effective on October 13. Churchill Capital Corp XI shareholders vote on November 2. The deal is expected to bring in more than $620M, including a roughly $200M PIPE led by Foxconn, and the company would trade as AGLT. The filing gives some of the most concrete numbers in the sector:

• 9 committed customer facility deployments (Agility's goal is up to 25 by the end of 2027)
• 65,000+ hours of real-world operation
• $300M+ in Digit 5 orders, subject to contractual milestones
• A Robot-as-a-Service deal with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada after a pilot

Tally status: PAID (GXO, Schaeffler, Toyota Canada) and ANNOUNCED (AGCO, a pilot starting in 2027).

3. Demo explainers: two viral clips, two different questions

Figure 03's 348-mile treadmill walk. CEO Brett Adcock posted that a Figure 03 walked nine straight days on a treadmill: 348 miles and 1.2 million steps.

• What it shows: leg hardware holding up under repetitive load. That's useful reliability data.
• What it doesn't show: battery endurance (a power cable is attached), navigation, or useful work. The report also says it's unclear whether a single robot did the whole run.

Figure's real deployment is at BMW Spartanburg, where Figure 03 units have done logistics sequencing in Hall 52 since June. BMW hasn't disclosed the fleet size.

New since our draft: Unitree's H2-X "Guardian." On October 21, Unitree released a promo for the H2-X, a security-focused H2 variant. In it, the robot kicks dents into car doors, lifts the front of a car, and confronts a knife-wielding "intruder." Unitree claims about 8 hours of maximum battery life, against roughly 3 for the base H2.

• What it doesn't show: Unitree hasn't said whether the stunts were autonomous, remote-controlled, or choreographed. It hasn't published a full spec sheet, test conditions for the battery claim, a price, or a launch date (36Kr). The footage doesn't show the robot judging a real threat.

Tally status: NONE VERIFIED. It's a product video, with no customer.

4. Europe: Audi tests sequencing, and Schaeffler has humanoids building humanoid parts

• Audi × Agile Robots (with Dassault Systèmes and NVIDIA) began a proof of concept at Audi's Ingolstadt Production Lab. Mobile humanoids pick parts into assembly sequence, a job that takes about 1 million picks a day at Audi. Status: PILOT (lab).
• Schaeffler opened a "lighthouse factory" in Taicang, China. Six humanoids across five stations assemble actuators for future humanoids. Schaeffler says its humanoid-robotics order intake has reached about €400M, so component suppliers are booking real revenue.

5. Money

• Astribot raised about RMB 1B (~$149M), led by Toposcend Capital, at a reported ~$2.2B valuation.
• AgiBot is reportedly nearing a RMB 1–1.5B round at about RMB 50B. AgiBot declined to comment. Reported, not confirmed.
• Minerva Humanoids came out of stealth with a ~$10M pre-seed led by General Catalyst.
• Context: Humanoid startups raised $8.6B in H1 2026. But MEKAWIRE counts just $10M of private robotics funding going to humanoid makers between Sept 15 and Oct 14.

6. The Tally (Tracker v1, 18 companies)

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Not investment advice.