Serve Robotics' CEO explains why delivery could be a bigger opportunity than robotaxis (www.businessinsider.com)

Serve Robotics announced it will begin making DoorDash deliveries in Los Angeles, marking a partnership between two companies that also build delivery robots (DoorDash unveiled its Dot last month). Serve—spun out of Postmates in 2021—already operates cooler‑shaped sidewalk bots in five U.S. cities (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Miami) and works with Uber Eats, restaurants and retailers like 7‑Eleven and Shake Shack. The companies said they plan to expand the collaboration nationwide; Serve’s shares jumped about 26% after the news. CEO Ali Kashani frames this as a strategic move toward an interoperable “shared platform” for last‑mile autonomy: there are far more deliveries than available robots, and different vehicle designs suit different use cases. Technical and operational realities differ from robotaxis—delivery bots must solve restaurant-to-robot handoffs, sidewalk navigation and mixed-use routing—while DoorDash’s Dot is stroller-sized, can travel up to ~20 mph and handle sidewalks and bike lanes. Kashani argues the delivery market could equal or exceed passenger robotaxi demand because every person consumes many items daily, making scalable, multi-partner robotic fleets a potentially larger commercial opportunity for the AI/robotics ecosystem.