Exploring how physical AI and humanoid robotics can transform supply chains and unlock new business models

Accenture (NYSE:ACN), together with Vodafone Procure & Connect and SAP, is piloting the use of humanoid robotics in warehouse environments, demonstrating how physical AI can enhance operational efficiency, improve safety, and enable new approaches to workforce and business model design. Accenture and SAP, along with Vodafone Procure & Connect, are presenting the work at Hannover Messe 2026*.

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A humanoid robot checking for misplaced or improperly stacked items

The initiative reflects Accenture's focus on applying advanced robotics and physical AI in real-world industrial environments, helping organizations move from experimentation to practical deployment at scale. It also explores how humanoid robots could support the evolution of future workforce models and create new revenue opportunities across industries.

The pilot program was conducted at Vodafone Procure & Connect's warehouse in Duisburg, Germany, where humanoid robots were deployed to operate alongside existing warehouse systems. The robot received inspection tasks through the SAP Extended Warehouse Management system and autonomously carried out visual inspections across the facility.

During the pilot, the humanoid robot identified operational inefficiencies, safety risks and optimization opportunities across warehouse processes. It detected misplaced or damaged products, assessed pallet stacking and weight distribution, highlighted unused storage space, and identified potential hazards such as obstacles in aisles or misaligned pallets. The robot reported its findings and recommendations directly into the SAP system, enabling real-time visibility and more informed operational decision-making.

SAP led the integration of the robots into the warehouse management system, while Accenture designed and deployed the robot intelligence and operational framework, drawing on its expertise in physical AI, advanced robotics and digital twin environments.

Christian Souche, Advanced Robotics lead, Accenture, said, "Trained in digital twins and powered by physical AI, humanoid robots can reduce worker injuries and other warehouse safety incidents and lower overtime costs and the dependency on temporary labor. Equally important, Vodafone Procure & Connect will gather valuable data and insights on robot deployment and performance as a basis for a future humanoid workforce solutions business."

Dr. Lukasz Ostrowski, head of Embodied AI & Robotics, SAP, commented, "At Vodafone Procure & Connect, we're leveraging Joule, SAP's AI execution fabric and interface for embodied AI, connecting robots to end-to-end processes and business logic and enabling them to know why, when and how to act. By grounding actions in trusted SAP data, we can automate health and safety incident reporting and real time inventory validation to protect workers and strengthen compliance through consistent auditable workflows."

Reinhard Stefan Plaza Bartsch, global Network Logistics director at Vodafone Procure & Connect, said, "Through this pilot, we are exploring how humanoid robotics can improve efficiency, safety and operational visibility in our warehouse operations. It also gives us a clearer view of how these capabilities could scale across our supply chain and support future business models."

Prasad Satyavolu, global lead for Manufacturing, Operations and Physical AI at Accenture, added, "Our work in collaboration SAP is a great example of how holistic deployment of humanoid robots – from simulation and training to warehouse deployment and integration with SAP data – creates a closed loop with transactional systems."

The humanoid robots used in the pilot are powered by Accenture's Robot Brain solution, enabling them to interact naturally with human operators through voice, gestures and text. They are trained in digital twins of warehouse environments, built on Accenture's Physical AI Orchestrator, which uses NVIDIA Omniverse libraries, the Mega NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint and the NVIDIA Metropolis libraries and Blueprint for video search and summarization for the deployment of visual AI agents, to go beyond single repetitive functions and learn new skills through imitation and reinforcement learning.

Accenture, SAP along with Vodafone Procure & Connect will present the pilot project at Hannover Messe 2026 at the SAP Hall 15, Booth F08 (Accenture Partner Stand). If you are interested in learning more, please contact jens.derksen@accenture.com, +49 175 57 61393.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading solutions and services company that helps the world's leading enterprises reinvent by building their digital core and unleashing the power of AI to create value at speed across the enterprise, bringing together the talent of our approximately 786,000 people, our proprietary assets and platforms, and deep ecosystem relationships. Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work in the world. Through our Reinvention Services we bring together our capabilities across strategy, consulting, technology, operations, Song and Industry X with our deep industry expertise to create and deliver solutions and services for our clients. Our purpose is to deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity, and we measure our success by the 360° value we create for all our stakeholders. Visit us at accenture.com.

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Jens Derksen

Accenture

+49 175 5761393

jens.derksen@accenture.com

Accenture, Vodafone Procure & Connect and SAP Pilot Humanoid Robotics in Warehouse Operations