CES 2027 Puts Working Robots Center Stage as Salem's Agility Robotics Nears Its Nasdaq Debut

Phil Harpster

11 minutes ago

5 min read

Cassie, a two-legged robot built at Oregon State University, walking on a forest path beside an engineer holding a controller — Cassie, a two-legged walking robot built at Oregon State University, walks in the OSU Research Forest with Mikhail Jones, then a faculty research assistant in mechanical engineering, in January 2017. Cassie was an early product of Agility Robotics, the OSU spinoff now headquartered in Salem. Photo: Oregon State University / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The robots at CES 2027 will have to earn their booth space. At a press briefing in Seoul on Oct. 14, the Consumer Technology Association, which produces the Las Vegas show, said January's exhibits will move from demos of what artificial intelligence might do to proof of what it is already doing, with robots that perform real tasks near the top of the list.

That message lands close to home. Salem is headquarters for Agility Robotics, maker of the Digit humanoid robot, and on Tuesday the company cleared a key federal hurdle on its way to becoming a publicly traded company.

What CES organizers are promising

CES 2027 runs Jan. 6-9 in Las Vegas. CTA president and CEO Kinsey Fabrizio said the show will feature AI uses that companies can measure, in areas such as productivity, advanced manufacturing and health care. "We're going to see what's actually happening," she said, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily. "You will see those examples happening on the show floor, and they will be more mature."

CTA sorted its 2027 trends into three tiers. The foundation tier covers AI chips, industry-specific AI and agentic AI, meaning software that carries out tasks on its own. The transformation tier covers robotics and physical AI, smart glasses, mobility, health and the connected home. The exploration tier covers quantum computing, space and brain-computer interfaces.

Robots get more floor space. CTA is adding a dedicated area for advanced manufacturing, robotics and automation in South Hall 3 of the Las Vegas Convention Center, focused on the components and manufacturing technology that go into robots, plus a separate zone for agentic AI, Chosun Biz reported. Fabrizio declined to give a count of humanoid exhibitors but said there are more than at CES 2026, where Chinese companies dominated the humanoid and physical AI exhibits, according to the JoongAng Daily.

"While humanoid robots are receiving much attention, what is more important is whether robots can actually do certain jobs better," CTA vice president Melissa Harrison said, in remarks translated by Money Today.

Bosch, which joined the briefing, said it will show robotics and vehicle technology under a physical AI theme in Las Vegas, including vehicle motion management, steer-by-wire and central computer systems. Marcello Lusuardi, head of Bosch Korea, said tactile and pressure sensors that let robots adjust their grip like a person will become important, Chosun Biz reported.

Salem's humanoid maker heads for Nasdaq

Agility said the Securities and Exchange Commission declared the registration statement for its merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, a blank-check company, effective on Oct. 13. Churchill XI shareholders are scheduled to vote on Nov. 2, and the deal is expected to close in November. The combined company would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker AGLT.

The transaction is expected to bring in more than $620 million in gross proceeds, including about $424 million held in Churchill XI's trust account, assuming no shareholders redeem their shares, and about $200 million from a private stock sale led by Foxconn. An investor presentation filed with the SEC on Oct. 6 puts Agility's pre-money equity value at $2.5 billion.

Agility grew out of Oregon State University's robotics research. OSU announced the spinoff in February 2017, when the company was based in Albany and selling a two-legged research robot called Cassie. Today Agility assembles Digit at RoboFab, a 70,000-square-foot factory in Salem that the company says is designed to build up to 10,000 robots a year and employ more than 500 people at full capacity. It also has offices in Pittsburgh and in Fremont, California, where it opened a hardware and physical AI hub in July.

What Digit 5 is supposed to do

Agility unveiled Digit 5 on Sept. 15. The company says the new model can repeatedly lift loads of up to 50 pounds, runs about 90 minutes on a battery that recharges in 9 minutes, stands 5 feet 11 inches tall and can reach shelves up to 7.2 feet high. The biggest change is a safety system meant to let it work near people without the fences that usually surround industrial robots. Sensors watch for people, and the robot steers around them, stops or sits down.

Earlier Digit models have logged more than 65,000 hours of work at customer sites including GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, according to the company. Agility says it had more than $300 million in multi-year orders for Digit 5 as of May, covering 1,000 robots on three-year robots-as-a-service contracts and subject to contract milestones. Early access is expected in the first half of 2027, with general availability by the end of 2027.

The company's own filings spell out the risks. Its investor presentation says Digit 5 remains under development and is not yet commercially available, and that RoboFab may not reach its planned production capacity.

What it means for the Willamette Valley

For Salem, the stakes are jobs and a hometown company on a national stock exchange. Agility says about 75% of Digit's parts are sourced in the U.S., and it aims to grow from nine committed customer facility deployments to as many as 25 by the end of 2027.

For households, a humanoid helper is still a ways off. Agility's investor slides list home, service and hospitality work as a future opportunity, and Digit 5 is built for factories and warehouses. The robots most Salem-area families can actually buy are smaller. A robot vacuum such as the eufy C28 Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo uses laser navigation to steer around furniture, toys and pet bowls.

Kids who want to try robotics can start with a coding robot like the Sphero BOLT+ or the build-it-yourself Makeblock mBot, which start with drag-and-drop blocks and step up to text-based languages. Smart glasses, another CTA theme for 2027, are already on store shelves in models such as the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2).

Willamette News plans to report from CES in January.

Gear for robot-curious households

eufy C28 Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo: 15,000 Pa suction, a self-cleaning HydroJet roller mop and camera-free LiDAR navigation. The station empties the dust bin and washes and dries the mop.
Sphero BOLT+ Coding Robot: Program it with drag-and-drop blocks, Python or JavaScript in the Sphero Edu app. Has an LCD screen, Qi wireless charging and a waterproof shell.
Makeblock mBot: Entry-level robot kit for ages 8-12 that builds in about 15 minutes and codes with Scratch and Arduino. It can follow lines and avoid obstacles. Batteries are not included.
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) Wayfarer AI Glasses: Camera, open-ear speakers and Meta AI built in, with up to 8 hours of battery life with moderate use and 48 more hours from the charging case. There is no augmented reality display.

Product details come from the manufacturers' Amazon listings as of October 2026. Prices and availability change.

Sources

Photo: Cassie the robot at the OSU Research Forest, January 2017, by Oregon State University via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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