DoorDash pilots driver‑loaded robot deliveries in Arizona

DoorDash’s autonomous delivery robot, the Dot, can travel several kilometres on roads and sidewalks but still needs a person to place the food inside it. In a limited pilot in the Phoenix‑Mesa area, drivers such as Devena Bybee received a task in the app to pick up an order from a restaurant, drive a short distance, load the meal into a waiting Dot robot and photograph the process. The assignment took about five minutes and paid roughly $5.

DoorDash says the program is intended to help merchants during busy periods and to give dashers extra earning opportunities outside traditional deliveries. A company spokesperson added that “dashers are essential to our platform and will continue completing the majority of deliveries even as our autonomous technology scales.” University of Illinois professor Robert Bruno noted that outsourcing the loading step to independent contractors could be cost‑effective for restaurants. CEO Tony Xu has previously said that handing orders to robots is the biggest challenge in scaling the technology.