Serve Robotics lets shops and AI agents summon its 2,000 sidewalk robots

Serve Robotics has opened its fleet of sidewalk delivery robots to anyone who can write a few lines of code. Through a new AV Delivery Developer Portal, a local shop, an independent developer or an AI assistant can request a pickup, confirm the drop-off and track the robot until the package arrives, without going through a food delivery app.

That matters most for the small businesses that hand a commission to the delivery apps on every order. A pharmacy or a florist could add robot delivery to its own checkout page and skip the middleman. It also gives AI agents something they rarely get: a way to move a physical object across a neighborhood.

The robots themselves are not new. Serve, spun out of Uber’s Postmates in 2021, says it has deployed more than 2,000 of its cart-like machines, which have completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries in more than 150 neighborhoods across 20 US cities. Until now, though, the only way to get one was to order through a partner platform, and those platforms take between 15 and 30 percent of every order, according to The Verge, largely because human couriers are expensive.

“Building on the fleet works like building on any other API,” the company said. An app sends pickup and drop-off points, gets back a price and an arrival estimate, and Serve’s software handles dispatch, routing, obstacle avoidance and the remote supervisors who watch over each trip. A sandbox lets developers simulate robots and rehearse awkward situations before a real machine moves. Serve’s suggested uses range from shuttling items between offices to repair shops ferrying parts and neighbors handing over something sold online.

“You shouldn’t have to start a robotics company to build something useful with robots,” said Ali Kashani, Serve’s co-founder and chief executive. He told The Verge that requests through the API will get the same treatment as large enterprise orders, and that pay-per-delivery or hourly reservations would cost small merchants “a fraction” of human-powered delivery. He framed the whole effort with one question: “Why does getting something delivered from China cost $1, but from Chinatown cost $10?”

The openness has limits. Anyone can read the documentation and try the sandbox, but putting a real robot on the street requires approval from Serve’s staff, who screen requests to keep out risky jobs and illicit cargo. Deliveries only run inside Serve’s existing service areas and operating hours, and the item has to fit in the robot’s cargo compartment. Serve has not published a price list, and Kashani said liability for stolen or broken goods will depend on how each partnership is priced and insured. With a top speed of around 6 mph, about 10 km/h, the robots suit short neighborhood hops, and Kashani said Serve has no plans to move onto the road.

Geography is the other catch. The service areas are all in US cities, including Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas. Serve also runs robots in Australia but has not said whether those machines are part of the portal, and there is no timeline for Europe, Asia or Latin America.

The move follows a split with Serve’s best-known partner. The company said in August that it would not renew its Uber Eats agreement, and it has since added deployments with Grubhub and DoorDash. Opening the fleet to everyone else also keeps the robots busy between the lunch and dinner rushes, the hours when food orders dry up, Kashani told The Verge. Last week Serve launched a separate offering, Serve Physical AI Services, which opens its navigation technology to companies building other kinds of robots.

The portal and its sandbox went live on November 11, and developers who want to move beyond simulation can register their interest through it. Serve has not said how long approvals will take or how many outside partners it will accept at first.

For now, the robot carrying a florist’s bouquet will still be cleared by a Serve employee and watched by a remote supervisor. What changes is who gets to press the button.

Tags: AI agents, robotics, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Ali Kashani, delivery robots