Your future delivery order in SF might be dropped off by a little self-driving robot
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A Redwood City company is working to make smart, mobile robots a part of everyday life.
Serve Robotics has built small, autonomous sidewalk delivery robots already delivering food in cities like Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta.
With big digital eyes and soft sounds, they're intentionally designed to look approachable.
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"We want the robot to be friendly and fun," CEO Ali Kashani told ABC7 News anchor Kristen Sze in an exclusive interview and tour of its headquarters. "When you see it on a sidewalk, you should actually want it there."
ABC7 News recently got a firsthand look at the technology, which even made waves at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, when NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang gave Serve a shoutout during his keynote.
Serve traces its roots to Postmates, which was later acquired by Uber. Uber eventually spun the robotics division out as its own company - Serve Robotics.
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Kashani says the original spark came from a simple question: "Why move two-pound burritos in two-ton cars?"
Today, Serve has about 2,000 robots fulfilling Uber Eats and DoorDash orders in seven U.S. cities, including Los Angeles. Kashani's own journey - growing up in Iran, leaving during political unrest, and later immersing himself in robotics in Canada before landing in Silicon Valley - shapes his belief that these machines can scale far beyond dense downtowns.
A Serve delivery works like this: once a customer places an order, a robot is dispatched to the restaurant, loaded by staff, and then rolls along sidewalks at up to 11 miles per hour.
The company is working with San Francisco officials and hoping for a commercial launch soon. Kashani believes the model could work in suburbs like Palo Alto or San Mateo as well.
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And there's an economic argument behind it. Human delivery comes with labor, gas, insurance, and vehicle wear - costs that average around $10 per trip. Robots are expensive to build today, but Kashani says that at scale, "a million robots is going to be very much a reality," and the goal is to bring delivery costs down to about one dollar.
Serve is also looking beyond food. The company recently tested a hybrid handoff between one of its sidewalk robots and a drone operated by Alphabet's Wing.
Serve also just announced it is acquiring Diligent Robotics, a Texas-based maker of hospital robots that deliver lab samples and medical supplies. From sidewalks to hospital hallways, industry watchers say more robots - from more players - are coming to more environments.
