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
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