Ali Kashani, Co-Founder & Serve Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how sidewalk delivery robots are transforming the economics and experience of last-mile delivery.

Ali shares the origin story of Serve Robotics, which was incubated within Postmates and later spun out of Uber into a publicly traded company. What began as a simple idea, delivering small items with small autonomous robots has grown into a rapidly scaling business operating in cities across the U.S., including Los Angeles, Miami, and Dallas.

As Serve Robotics continues to expand, the company is evolving into a full-fledged robotics platform with multiple revenue streams spanning advertising, delivery, licensing, and potentially something even bigger in the future.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Founding of Serve Robotics

2:07 Deliveries

4:26 Deploying Sidewalk Robots

9:53 Deployment Markets

15:11 A Robotics Company

19:37 Wing Partnership

21:20 Restaurant Deliveries & Packaging

27:53 Comparing Gen 2 to Gen 3 Robots

29:59 Testing Before Deploying

32:37 New Markets

33:49 Advertising Business

37:33 Growing Delivery Volume

39:37 The Evolution of Sidewalk Robots

42:07 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Wednesday, May 14, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.