Uber Eats will be rolling out an autonomous delivery service in the UK later this year through a partnership with robotics firm Starship Technologies.
Known for its delivery bots, Starship, founded by one of the original Skype developers Ahti Heinla, will work with the takeaway delivery service to provide autonomous robots.
Uber Eats said it intends to launch this service globally, but will start in the UK in December, followed by a European expansion in 2026 with plans to bring the service to the US in 2027.
The first of these robots will be deployed in Leeds before the end of the year, with the promise of completing deliveries in under 30 minutes for distances of up to two miles.
“Together, we’re building the infrastructure that will define the next generation of urban logistics,” said Heinla.
“Uber Eats has built the world’s leading delivery platform, with the widest reach, trusted by millions across 10,000 cities. We bring scalable autonomous technology that works profitably at city scale.”
Starship has already deployed delivery robots in the UK in areas including Leeds, Milton Keynes and Greater Manchester.
Recent research into the personal delivery device market from Prysm Global that examined firms like Starship claimed that a wider rollout of the technology could add £1.3bn to the UK economy in the next decade.
“Autonomous delivery is an exciting part of how we see the future of Uber Eats,” said Sarfraz Maredia, global head of autonomous at Uber.
“Together with Starship, we’re bringing this future to life across multiple continents, leveraging Uber’s global scale and Starship’s proven autonomy to deliver efficient and affordable experiences for consumers and merchants everywhere.”
