DoorDash Unveils Dot, the Delivery Robot Powered by its Autonomous Delivery Platform to Accelerate Local Commerce
DoorDash Dot is the first commercial autonomous delivery robot to seamlessly navigate bike lanes, roads, and sidewalks, and is purpose-built for local commerce. Developed entirely in-house by our team at DoorDash Labs, Dot integrates with our existing marketplace infrastructure and our new Autonomous Delivery Platform to enable seamless, scalable delivery.
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Accelerating Local Commerce with Autonomy and Dot
Today, we're unveiling Dot, the first commercial autonomous robot built to travel seamlessly on bike lanes, roads, sidewalks, and driveways, and specifically designed for local delivery. At one-tenth the size of a car, Dot is designed for quick deliveries and engineered for safety. Reaching speeds of up to 20 mph, Dot is built for neighborhood trips to help local businesses meet growing consumer demand. Its all-electric design is right-sized for local delivery, helping reduce congestion and emissions, and resulting in fewer cars on the road and safer streets. Dot is designed for secure, agile item handoffs that integrate seamlessly into merchant operations, while ensuring a smooth, reliable experience for consumers.
Beginning with an early access program in Tempe and Mesa, Arizona, Dot is the latest step forward in our ongoing work to build the world's most comprehensive delivery ecosystem. We're launching this program in the greater Phoenix metro area, marking the beginning of our commercial deployment and paving the way for future expansion into multiple new markets.
"You don't always need a full-sized car to deliver a tube of toothpaste or pack of diapers. That's the insight behind Dot," said Stanley Tang, Co-Founder and Head of DoorDash Labs. "The breakthrough wasn't just making it autonomous, but in making it reliable and efficient to serve the needs of local businesses and consumers. Dot is purpose-built for the millions of deliveries we facilitate every day. It is small enough to navigate doorways and driveways, fast enough to maintain food quality, and smart enough to optimize the best routes for delivery. Every design decision, from its compact size to its speed to the sensor suite, came from analyzing billions of deliveries on our global platform and understanding what actually moves the needle for merchants and consumers."
Orchestrating Multi-Modal Delivery with Our Autonomous Delivery Platform
Dot is just one piece of how we see the future of delivery. We're also rolling out our Autonomous Delivery Platform, the system that helps orchestrate different types of delivery methods together at scale.
The Autonomous Delivery Platform serves as an AI dispatcher, matching each order with the optimal delivery method based on factors like speed, cost, location, and experience. Whether that's a Dasher, a Dot on the road, a drone in the air, or a sidewalk robot, the platform orchestrates these decisions in real-time to optimize across our entire global network. Together with tools like SmartScale for merchants — which uses advanced AI-powered technology to help ensure orders are accurate and meet weight requirements for new delivery methods like drones — the Autonomous Delivery Platform powers end-to-end AI for commerce, streamlining handoffs today while laying the groundwork for more reliable, efficient deliveries as autonomy scales.
"With more than 10 billion deliveries under our belt, we've learned what works, what doesn't, and what scales," said Ashu Rege, VP and Head of Autonomy at DoorDash Labs. "Making autonomous technology work for delivery requires reimagining it from the ground up. We've built Dot and our Autonomous Delivery Platform using advanced AI and robotics specifically designed for the complexities of local commerce."
By leveraging a multi-modal system that integrates Dashers, robots, and drones into DoorDash's logistics network, the goal is to ensure the most effective fulfillment method for every order while supporting increased demand for local commerce. That means strategic partnerships with leading autonomous technology providers will be essential, and we're accelerating the deployment of solutions and partnerships that enhance the DoorDash experience today.
Creating New Opportunities for Dashers, Merchants, and Consumers
As DoorDash expands into new geographies and supports even more local businesses, we need innovative ways to keep pace with demand and the vast variety of different delivery types. By leveraging autonomous technology for deliveries, we can help merchants meet rising demand while serving our consumers better and creating new opportunities for everyone.
For merchants, autonomous delivery can help them reach even more consumers and get their orders fulfilled quickly, even during busy periods or late at night. For consumers, it means quick, reliable access to stores and restaurants they love, with the added benefit of less traffic congestion and emissions for individual delivery trips.
For Dashers, they will continue to complete the vast majority of our millions of daily deliveries. At the same time, autonomous technology will increasingly allow Dashers to focus more on the high-value orders that require human judgment and care. With Dot filling in the gaps on local trips, it helps the whole network run more efficiently to support the growing demand for local commerce. While autonomous delivery is an important part of our future, Dashers are and will remain essential to our platform — particularly as the demand for local delivery increases.
The synergy between human and autonomous delivery unlocks value for merchants, Dashers, and consumers alike. The differentiator is that Dot is not a standalone product — it is seamlessly integrated into the same routing engine, merchant tools, and consumer app that already power DoorDash. Dot is part of a true end-to-end AI commerce platform designed to commercialize autonomy at scale. And with each mile driven, our system becomes even smarter, safer, and more deeply integrated into our network. It's infrastructure that could materially improve business outcomes for hundreds of thousands of merchants.
"Mesa has long been a proving ground for breakthrough ideas, and Dot is the latest example of American innovation in action. Seeing these autonomous delivery robots on streets throughout Mesa demonstrates how these advanced technologies can meet daily needs while strengthening the local businesses at the heart of our community. Our partnership with DoorDash underscores that Mesa, Arizona, isn't just participating in the future of local delivery, we're helping shape it," said Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman.
Moving Forward
Dot and the Autonomous Delivery Platform represent the next phase in our mission to grow and empower local economies. Combining purpose-built autonomous robots with our existing delivery network will create a more efficient, sustainable, and accessible delivery ecosystem. You can read more about how we built Dot on our Engineering Blog.
The path to scaled autonomous delivery requires more than just technology. It requires operational excellence, merchant partnerships, regulatory collaboration, community care, and a deep understanding of local commerce dynamics. We'll continue partnering with leading autonomous technology providers as we invest in our Autonomous Delivery Platform to accelerate new capabilities and partnerships that will shape the DoorDash experience for the future. We're looking forward to expanding Dot alongside our strategic autonomous partnerships to help grow and empower local economies, creating new possibilities for local commerce along the way.
Join us in building the future of autonomous commerce. DoorDash Labs is hiring for dozens of roles in engineering, research, and operations. Visit careers.doordash.com to learn more.
Merchants interested in participating in the Dot program can sign up for early access here.
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