IN Brief:
- Catalyst Brands has signed a commercial agreement with Figure AI for humanoid robotics.
- The first deployment will take place at the Reno distribution logistics centre.
- The project will support repetitive sorting and packing tasks in retail distribution.
Catalyst Brands has signed a commercial agreement with Figure AI to introduce humanoid robotics into its supply chain operations.
The first phase will take place at the company’s Reno, Nevada distribution logistics centre, where Figure’s robots will support repetitive sorting and packing activity. The facility already uses a Joey Pouch sorting system and received a $40m infrastructure upgrade in 2024.
Catalyst Brands owns or operates a portfolio including JCPenney, Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand, and Nautica. Across those retail brands, the company serves customers through stores, shop-in-shops, and e-commerce channels, creating a distribution environment where order profiles, product categories, and fulfilment requirements vary across banners.
The agreement gives Catalyst a route to test humanoid automation in a live distribution setting rather than a controlled demonstration environment. Sorting and packing work remains labour-intensive in many retail logistics operations, especially where products vary by size, handling characteristics, packaging requirements, and destination.
Warehouse automation is now spreading across several technology categories at once. Geek+ has been recognised for robotic arm picking technology, while Exotec is automating MUSINSA’s South Korean warehouse. Catalyst’s humanoid robotics deployment adds another approach, built around machines that can operate in spaces originally designed for people.
Humanoid robots are attracting attention because warehouses, stores, stockrooms, and packing lines already rely on human-scale spaces, tools, benches, carts, and workflows. A robot that can operate in those environments without major redesign has a different adoption case from traditional automation systems that require fixed layouts, conveyors, fenced cells, or specialised storage structures.
Retail distribution is a demanding test environment. SKU variety, seasonal peaks, returns, packaging variation, damaged goods, changing labour patterns, and tight dispatch windows all create variability. Any humanoid system must handle that variability safely and reliably before it can move beyond a narrow task allocation.
The Reno deployment will be judged on practical operating measures: task completion, uptime, system integration, safety, training time, and the ability to scale beyond one use case. Sorting and packing are sensible starting points because they are repetitive, measurable, and closely linked to throughput. They are also areas where labour constraints can quickly affect service levels during peak demand.
Retail supply chains are under pressure to support store replenishment, direct-to-consumer fulfilment, returns processing, and marketplace-style service expectations from the same networks. Automation investment is increasingly focused on flexibility rather than pure speed. Robots that can move between tasks, support existing staff, and operate inside mixed workflows may prove more useful than systems that require operations to be rebuilt around them.
Commercial warehouse deployments of humanoid robotics remain early, and the technology still has to prove reliability under shift conditions. Catalyst’s agreement connects a high-profile robotics company with a distribution operation complex enough to test the model properly. If the Reno deployment performs consistently, the next question will be whether humanoid robotics can scale from task support into a repeatable warehouse labour model.
