CHICAGO —Restaurant delivery is hot. Morgan Stanley reports that online food delivery sales in 2018 were $10.5 billion, and the company predicts that in 2021—just two years from now—it will reach $21.6 billion. Forbes lists five ways autonomous machines and AI will make food delivery even better.
Meituan Dianping is the world’s largest on-demand food delivery company and handles 21 million orders daily. Its delivery robots are being tested in three locations: Joy City Mall in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, Lenovo’s offices in Shenzhen and the city of Xiong’an.
Postmates recently launched Serve, a bot that can haul 50 pounds and go 30 miles on a charge. Serve, which sports sensors to navigate sidewalks, interacts with customers using a touchscreen and cameras.
The Kiwi Campus KiwiBots deliver food with a smile around the UC Berkeley and Stanford campuses. The bots also have digital eyes that wink at people. They are equipped with six Ultra HD cameras capable of 250 degrees of vision for object detection, using AI processors to help interpret all the images of street and sidewalk action for navigation.
Marble’s robots are powered by AI and computer vision to detect people, cars, pets and other objects as they zip around town. These friendly neighborhood robots use deep learning to better perceive the world around them, so local businesses can deliver their products safely and securely.
Make no mistake—the robots have landed.
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