- Uber Eats and Starship Technologies sign delivery partnership
- Robotic deliveries coming to parts of the UK soon
- The expansion could extend to Europe in 2026
Uber Eats has revealed that it will soon use robots from Starship Technologies to deliver food and other items to customers across the UK.
The delivery giant has teamed up with the robotics company to launch an initial trial in Leeds, before expanding to Sheffield and hopefully other parts of the UK in the future, with European expansion planned for 2026 and the US market in 2027.
However, customers won’t be able to tip their robotic friend, but they will be able to rate their experience in the app, like any typical Uber Eats delivery.
Deliveries with Uber Eats robots
Spaceship robots have already become common in some parts of the UK, cruising along pavements to drop off items.
The company claims it currently operates the world’s largest autonomous delivery network with more than 2,700 robots in more than 270 locations, completing more than 100,000 road crossings each day, creating a generated data set of approximately 200 million crossings, which the company uses to continually train and improve its AI models.
Robots used for Uber Eats deliveries will be able to complete deliveries in less than 30 minutes for distances up to 2 miles
“Together, we are building the infrastructure that will define the next generation of urban logistics,” said Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CEO of Starship Technologies.
“Uber Eats has created the world’s leading delivery platform, with the widest reach, trusted by millions of people in 10,000 cities. We provide scalable autonomous technology that works profitably at city scale.”
The move is the latest expansion of Uber Eats and autonomous deliveries, as the company already has programs available in 9 cities with four existing partners.
Merchants in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Jersey City, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta already offer autonomous deliveries, with pilots underway in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.
“Autonomous delivery is an interesting part of how we see the future of Uber Eats,” said Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomy. “Together with Starship, we are bringing this future to life on multiple continents, leveraging Uber’s global scale and Starship’s proven autonomy to deliver efficient, affordable experiences for consumers and merchants around the world.”
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