# Figure AI Signs Humanoid Deal With Catalyst Brands, Marking Retail's First Major Entry Into Robot Labor **Source:** https://glitchwire.com/news/figure-ai-signs-humanoid-deal-with-catalyst-brands-marking-retails-first-major-e/ **Published:** 2026-05-26T20:57:38.835Z **Author:** AI Desk · Glitchwire **Categories:** AI, Tech ## Summary Brookfield's common ownership of both companies makes this the first deployment to emerge from the asset manager's $100 billion AI infrastructure strategy. ## Article Figure AI has signed a commercial partnership with [Catalyst Brands](https://www.catalystbrands.com/), the retail holding company that controls JCPenney, Brooks Brothers, Aéropostale, Lucky Brand, and Nautica. The deal puts Figure's humanoid robots into a distribution center in Reno, Nevada, where they will perform sorting and packing tasks alongside human workers. The announcement, made today, marks the first commercial agreement between Figure and a Brookfield portfolio company. Brookfield holds significant equity positions in both Figure and Catalyst Brands. That common ownership is not incidental. It represents how Brookfield intends to deploy its AI infrastructure investments across its holdings. ## Inside the Reno Deployment Figure's robots will initially work on Catalyst's Joey Pouch sorting system, a computerized induction, sorting, and packing operation the company already upgraded with $40 million in infrastructure in 2024. The humanoids will handle physically demanding, repetitive tasks. Catalyst says the goal is to free associates for higher-skill work, the standard framing companies use when introducing automation into labor environments. The agreement includes provisions for scaling across the broader Catalyst Brands portfolio. Figure CEO Brett Adcock called it a "playbook for how AI-driven hardware can serve as a primary growth engine for modern holding companies." That language signals Figure's strategy: signing umbrella deals with diversified companies that can deploy robots across multiple business units. ## The Brookfield Connection Brookfield partnered with Figure in September 2025, investing in the company's Series C funding round and committing to help build training data for Helix, Figure's proprietary vision-language-action model. The asset manager has over $1 trillion in assets and 100,000 residential units. Its interest in Figure extends beyond financial returns. Brookfield wants the data that comes from deploying robots across its properties. Catalyst Brands emerged in January 2025 when JCPenney and SPARC Group merged. Simon Property Group, Brookfield, Authentic Brands Group, and Shein are major shareholders. The company operates more than 1,800 retail locations, employs approximately 60,000 people, and generates over $9 billion in annual revenue. It is led by Marc Rosen, the former JCPenney CEO. ## Where This Fits in the Humanoid Race Figure currently holds the highest private valuation in the humanoid robotics sector at $39 billion, following its September 2025 funding round. The company operates BotQ, a manufacturing facility targeting 12,000 units annually. It has previously partnered with [BMW for automotive manufacturing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_AI), though that partnership has drawn scrutiny over the gap between promotional claims and actual deployment activity. The retail sector has been slower to adopt humanoid robots than automotive manufacturing or logistics. [Agility Robotics' Digit](/news/the-roadrunner-that-doesnt-run-rai-institutes-wheeled-biped-signals-a-cambrian-m/) leads commercial deployments, with paying contracts at Amazon, GXO Logistics, and Spanx warehouses. Goldman Sachs projects 50,000 to 100,000 humanoid units deployed by the end of this year, with the U.S. and China as primary markets. Industry analysts generally describe 2026 as an inflection point for humanoid commercialization, with production costs declining and capabilities improving. Most deployments remain concentrated in logistics and manufacturing. Consumer applications are years away. ## What This Means for Retail Labor Catalyst Brands operates in a labor-intensive industry facing persistent staffing challenges. Distribution centers, in particular, struggle to recruit and retain workers for physically demanding roles. Humanoid robots offer a standardized solution that can theoretically scale across facilities without requiring extensive infrastructure retrofits. The framing from both companies emphasizes augmentation over replacement. Whether that holds depends on how many robots eventually deploy, at what cost, and how the economics compare to human workers. No pricing details were disclosed for the Figure-Catalyst agreement. For Figure, this deal validates the Brookfield strategy: use common ownership to accelerate deployment across portfolio companies, generate operational data, and build a defensible lead in real-world training environments. For Catalyst, it represents a bet that [automation technology](/news/the-ai-booms-first-major-supply-chain-rebellion-why-45000-samsung-workers-are-re/) can support the kind of operational scalability a six-brand retail conglomerate requires. The robots start in Reno. The question is where they go next. --- **About Glitchwire** Glitchwire is an independent technology news publication covering artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, science, security, policy, finance, and the broader technology industry. 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