UberEats will launch two autonomous delivery pilots in Los Angeles in partnership with Serve Robotics, a robotic sidewalk delivery startup that is an Uber spinout, and Motional, an autonomous vehicle technology company.

Both pilots will start out delivering food from only a few merchants. Serve will focus on shorter trips in West Hollywood, while Motional will focus on long-distance deliveries in Santa Monica. In both pilot cases, customers residing within the pilot zones can choose to have their food delivered by an autonomous vehicle (AV). They can track the order and when they receive a notification to meet the AV outside, they can grab their food by unlocking the vehicle using a passcode sent to their phone.

Customers will be charged for deliveries in both pilot cases. However, Uber expects that certain delivery fees, which might normally be applicable, may not be charged during this initial phase for deliveries made by Motional due to certain California regulations.  

UberEats also intends to roll out a voice ordering feature, which integrates Google Assistant into the UberEats platform.

Customers will be able to simply order food by saying “Ok Google,” followed by an instruction to order food from a restaurant of their choice, which will trigger the UberEats app through which the customer can place an order via voice command. 

This feature will initially be available only in English but will soon be available in other languages as well. The function will first be rolled out for Android devices and then made available to other devices.