From Exhibitions to Real-World Scenarios: Logistics Becomes the Consensus First Choice Across the Industry
Looking across the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), the humanoid robot industry has reached a clear watershed. In previous years, backflips and dancing were prevalent in the exhibition halls; this year, more manufacturers are focusing on real-world operational demonstrations.
Complete machine manufacturers such as Agibot, RobotEra, and Galbot unanimously agree that logistics scenarios will be the first track for the scaled commercialization of humanoid robots;
Logistics terminal enterprises such as JD.com, SF Express, and China Post have proactively entered the field, accelerating the deployment and trial of various scenarios;
Logistics system integrators such as Damon Technology and RIAMB Technology are also actively exploring integrated deployment solutions for humanoid robots adapted to warehousing and logistics.
From complete machine manufacturers and terminal users to logistics system integrators, the collective bet by the entire industry chain is no coincidence; behind it lies the unique deployment advantages of the logistics track.
Why Logistics?
First, rich application scenarios and huge real demand for humanoid robots
According to data from the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing and the State Post Bureau, the total social logistics volume in China reached 368.2 trillion yuan in 2025, with the annual express delivery volume hitting 198.95 billion parcels. Flexible positions such as in-warehouse picking, palletizing, and cargo sorting are distributed throughout the entire warehousing and distribution chain. Previous automated equipment (including mobile robots) could only cover standardized operations, while processes involving massive mixed goods and variable stations have long relied on manual labor, leaving vast room for automation transformation. *The logistics referred to in this article covers four major sectors: express delivery, e-commerce, manufacturing, and airport logistics.
Second, lower deployment threshold for humanoid robots in logistics
Compared to the stringent standards of manufacturing production lines in automobiles and electronics, where process precision requirements are high and the cost of errors is huge, logistics scenarios offer a higher fault tolerance space and a lower deployment threshold.
Third, buyers with abundant capital and willingness for continuous investment
The continuously expanding labor gap is driving logistics enterprises to proactively seek automation upgrades. Leading logistics providers are willing to open up real in-warehouse scenarios to jointly carry out solution iteration and scenario introduction.
With the superposition of multiple conditions, humanoid robot enterprises naturally target this commercialization track. According to statistics from MIR Research, the shipment volume of humanoid robots in China's logistics industry approached 1,000 units in 2025, is estimated to exceed 2,000 units in 2026, and is expected to reach the scale of 100,000 units by 2035.
01. With the Widespread Adoption of Automated Equipment, Why Does Logistics Need Humanoid Robots?
Walking into any e-commerce distribution warehouse, one can intuitively feel the fragmentation:
Automated storage and retrieval systems, high-speed sorting lines, and AMR clusters handle standard goods with maximum efficiency;
In the inbound docks, picking shelves, and outbound dock areas, operations still rely on continuous manual labor.
This is the long-unfilled gap in logistics automation: standard operations are highly automated, while flexible operations rely on manual labor.
Such positions often face strong repetitiveness and heavy labor loads, encountering difficulties in recruitment and high turnover rates year after year. Meanwhile, long-term bending and handling operations easily cause physical strain.
First, why humanoid?
Before answering this question, it is necessary to clarify the capability boundaries of mature automated equipment—what problems do these equipment solve, and what cannot they solve?
Currently, mature logistics automation equipment on the market all have very clear capability boundaries:
AMRs, conveyor lines, and fixed robotic arms are very good at handling goods with unified specifications and fixed forms.
Under conditions of regular routes, single actions, and controllable scenarios, the efficiency of automated equipment far exceeds that of manual labor.
However, once encountering scenarios with mixed SKUs, deformed packages, disordered placement, and variable stations, the original automated equipment becomes difficult to adapt. The costs of renovating sites, customizing tooling, and debugging programs are high, resulting in low economic viability of the solutions. It is precisely these unstructured, dynamic, and scattered flexible stations that have long been in the automation blank zone.
Against this backdrop, the industry urgently needs a new type of intelligent equipment to fill the gaps that automation cannot cover. Humanoid robots happen to precisely match such flexible operation needs.
Second, why specifically humanoid?
Many people will ask: if there is a flexible demand, why must it be humanoid? In fact, not all flexible scenarios require humanoid robots. Mobile robots and composite robots can also complete some simple flexible handling tasks.
However, when facing the dynamic and complex working conditions in logistics warehouses, there is a clear differentiation in the capability boundaries at the hardware and software levels among the three types of equipment: mobile robots, composite robots, and humanoid robots. The specific comparison is as follows:
Image source: MIR Research compilation
Relying on the anthropomorphic body structure, humanoid robots also derive multiple advantages:
They can adapt to logistics facilities designed based on human operation scales with zero renovation. In contrast, mobile robots and composite robots have limited operation ranges, and deploying them in flexible scenarios requires renovating on-site facilities or adding lifting mechanisms;
Their motion paradigms are close to humans, making it easier for frontline employees to predict their operational intentions. Conversely, the motion logic of mobile robots and composite robots differs greatly from humans, requiring extra familiarization with their behavioral patterns;
Relying on dexterous hands to replicate manual clamping actions, they can reuse existing manual hand-held tools. In contrast, mobile robots and composite robots lack flexible clamping structures and require separate customization of end effectors.
Of course, this must be viewed objectively. Under working conditions with regular scenarios and fixed tasks, considering comprehensive costs and operational efficiency, mobile robots and composite robots remain the better choice.
Targeting the blank zone of a large amount of flexible non-standard operations, humanoid robots possess unique value. This is also the core reason why the logistics industry chooses humanoid robots; it is not a technical gimmick, but a solution more adaptable to flexible and complex scenarios within the existing warehousing system.
02. What Scenarios Can Humanoid Robots Be Deployed In, and Which Are Just Publicity Gimmicks?
After clarifying that the logistics industry needs humanoid robots, the urgent question to answer is where to use them and what to use.
To judge the deployment value, three types of entities must be compared simultaneously: manual labor, automation, and humanoid robots. To determine which is more economical, more efficient, and more adaptable to the scenario.
Many seemingly adaptable scenarios actually have obvious shortcomings. For example, when loading high-level cage carts, the arm span and operation height of humanoids are limited, and the efficiency is far inferior to dedicated robotic arms. Another example is the high-speed sorting of regular goods, where the traditional single-arm + suction cup solution is mature and low-cost, giving humanoids no advantage.
Therefore, the positioning of humanoid robots must be precise: focusing on flexible stations with high manual labor intensity, where automated equipment struggles to meet requirements, and without the need to pursue ultimate efficiency and cost.
First, which scenarios have deployment opportunities
Express warehouses, e-commerce warehouses, factories, and airports have different working conditions in different logistics sub-sectors. The following are the opportunity operation scenarios sorted out by sub-sector:
Image source: MIR Research compilation
Taking sorting and package supplying as an example, when facing soft packages, irregularly shaped items, and deformed packages, the grasping stability of traditional single arms equipped with fixed grippers and suction cups drops significantly, and the generalization ability is extremely poor. This is precisely the segmented scenario where the dual arms, flexible perception, and adaptive operation capabilities of humanoid robots can exert their value.
Second, what models are adaptable to different scenarios
In the current commercialization stage, there is temporarily no humanoid solution in the logistics industry that can achieve universality; scenarios determine model selection. Model selection requires the simultaneous evaluation of two major elements: scenario operation requirements and on-site venue conditions.
Various operations in logistics, based on the differences in the above two layers of conditions, are adaptable to different forms of humanoid robots:
Image source: MIR Research compilation
Compared to wheeled humanoid robots, bipedal humanoid robots can adapt to uneven ground and narrow aisle working conditions, but this is often accompanied by sacrifices in payload, battery life, and continuous operation stability.
Synthesizing scenario opportunities and model adaptation boundaries, it is not difficult to see that humanoid robots cannot replace all logistics automation solutions, and purely unmanned dark warehouses are also difficult to achieve. The warehousing system will ultimately rely on the collaborative operation of three parties: automation, humanoid robots, and frontline employees, to form a complete logistics operation system:
The WMS uniformly issues operation tasks, and the flow of large batches of standard goods is handed over to automated equipment;
Flexible tasks such as irregularly shaped items and scattered goods are assigned to humanoid robots;
The focus of frontline employees shifts to equipment operation and maintenance management, while simultaneously handling various on-site emergencies that robots struggle to cope with, such as damaged packages and on-site congestion.
03. Deconstructing Industry Chain Opportunities: How to Seize the Wave of Humanoid Robot Deployment?
As humanoid robots gradually step out of exhibitions and enter real-world warehouse testing, industry competition no longer stays at parameter comparison and concept hype; the focus shifts to the deployment of scenario value and industry chain collaboration.
The logistics humanoid track includes four types of participants: humanoid robot complete machine manufacturers, logistics system integrators, logistics terminal users, and mobile robot/composite robot manufacturers. Each party can rely on its own resources and capability advantages to explore development paths that fit its business positioning.
First, humanoid robot complete machine manufacturers: facing diverse warehousing working conditions, creating scenario-based robot solutions
As mentioned above, it is difficult to achieve universal humanoid applications in the logistics industry. Complete machine manufacturers do not need to pursue a single robot adaptable to all scenarios. They need to be rooted in real in-warehouse operation needs, and refine practical models and operation strategies according to the differences in scenario operation needs and venue environments.
Second, logistics system integrators: bridging the last link of deployment, completing engineering delivery
Humanoid robots cannot work independently of existing warehousing equipment, and there are no out-of-the-box standardized solutions. Logistics system integrators undertake key bridging work, with core work divided into three major aspects:
1) Overall workstation solution design
Relying on the understanding of in-warehouse operation processes and combining on-site venue conditions, plan the operation stations of humanoid robots and human-robot collaborative layouts.
2) Cross-system integration docking
Possessing the foundation for the development and implementation of warehousing scheduling systems, enabling the interconnection of humanoid robots with the WMS and existing automated equipment scheduling platforms.
3) Secondary scenario development and continuous debugging
Customize supporting end-effector gripping fixtures according to goods forms and operation working conditions, and continuously debug and optimize to adapt to the variable on-site operation needs of the warehouse.
Third, logistics terminal users: not just "users", but also industry co-builders
As equipment users, logistics enterprises can leverage humanoid robots to undertake flexible positions that automation struggles to cover; as industry co-builders, logistics enterprises can deeply participate in the iteration of the humanoid robot industry, with value reflected in multiple levels:
1) Deployment pilots, verifying scenario feasibility
Open up real in-warehouse operation sites, test robot operation capabilities in actual combat environments, and screen solutions with deployment value.
2) Co-building data systems, participating in robot algorithm training
Accumulate real package and warehousing environment data, providing data support for the optimization of robot grasping, navigation, and operation strategies.
3) Joint R&D, building an industry collaborative ecosystem
Based on their own in-warehouse operation experience, jointly define scenario needs with equipment enterprises; link upstream and downstream partners to promote the continuous iteration of robot products adapted to logistics working conditions.
Fourth, mobile robot/composite robot manufacturers: relying on scenario accumulation, becoming enablers of the humanoid robot ecosystem
Deeply engaged in logistics automation for many years, mobile robot and composite robot enterprises have accumulated mature warehousing scenario cognition, robot scheduling technology, and hardware mass production experience. They can participate in the humanoid robot deployment process in multiple identities:
1) Assisting in promoting project deployment
Relying on long-term in-warehouse project experience, provide scenario guidance for humanoid complete machine manufacturers, and assist in on-site secondary development and project implementation.
2) Outputting hardware and software supporting capabilities
Supply robot components, cluster scheduling systems, logistics scenario vertical models, and other technical assets to the outside, providing supporting support for humanoid robot deployment.
3) Expanding upwards into complete machine R&D layout
Leading enterprises possess hardware manufacturing, algorithm capabilities, and scenario understanding. In the long run, they have the opportunity to independently develop humanoid robot complete machines oriented towards logistics scenarios.
Conclusion
Market heat will eventually subside. Only solutions that fit the on-site working conditions of logistics and truly achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement can sustainably pass through commercialization.
The humanoid robot logistics track is not a competition for a single manufacturer, but an arena for the collaboration of the entire industry chain.
Insightful industry players have long seen the huge potential of humanoid robots in the logistics industry. Relying on their own resources to find accurate positioning, deeply cultivating scenarios, and laying out collaborative ecosystems in advance, they seize the window period for industry deployment and ultimately build sustainable competitive barriers in the industry wave.