AI doesn’t just want to eat your lunch — sometimes it wants to deliver it, too.
Driverless tech provider Motional and Uber Eats plan to add a dash of autonomy to food delivery next year in Santa Monica, serving up meal kits from select restaurants. The news was first reported by AiThority.
The plan is for food deliveries to come via Motional’s all-electric Hyundai IONIQ 5-based robotaxis. Motional said this will be the first time its vehicles are used to deliver food. It's not clear whether humans or robots will bring the meal kits to customers' doorsteps.
This isn't the first partnership with a ride-sharing company for the Motional, though. It has already paired with Uber competitor Lyft. Motional and Lyft are set to put driverless Lyft vehicles on the road in 2023 in Las Vegas, a city that has become a petri dish for AI and emerging urban tech experimentation.