‘Uber Eats’ to use robots to deliver food in the UK
Uber Eats is partnering with sidewalk delivery robot company "Starship Technologies" to deliver food in the UK later this year.
The companies will launch the service in the Leeds and Sheffield areas in December “from selected merchants” and expand from there. Uber said the service will expand to “additional European markets in 2026” and the US in 2027.
The partnership complements Uber’s autonomous delivery strategy, which already includes both small sidewalk robots and larger road-going self-driving cars. “Starship”, meanwhile, uses one of the most advanced vehicles in the category, with more than 3,000 robots operating in more than 270 locations worldwide, and regular delivery times within a two-mile radius of less than 30 minutes.
Battery-powered electric robots move at a pedestrian pace, navigate using a combination of cameras, sensors and machine learning, and are monitored from a distance by operators who can help navigate difficult crossings.
Leeds and Sheffield are a good mix: dense neighborhoods, university communities, active high streets with demand for short trips.
The competition is also changing. Food delivery rivals in the UK have been testing similar pilot projects over the years, and larger retailers have tested robot delivery in some postcodes. This means that as the technology expands, the differentiating factors will be network density, unit economics and how seamlessly autonomy integrates with merchant operations and customer experience.
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