Deliveroo says its first robot deliveries will start in 5 UK cities soon — but claims the ‘majority’ of orders will still involve human riders | Daily Reports Online
- Deliveroo says its first robot deliveries will start soon in London
- Canary Wharf will get its first four-wheeled robot deliveries this month
- Four other UK cities will follow “in the coming weeks and months”
Your next Deliveroo order could arrive courtesy of a four-wheeled robot rather than a human rider — with the delivery giant revealing that its first robot deliveries are starting soon in five locations.
Deliveroo has partnered with Coco Robotics to use its fully-electric robots for some delivieries, which will start in London’s Canary Wharf sometime in October. These will use onboard sensors, cameras and AI to trundle around at “walking pace” through public streets to bring orders straight to customers.
The robots won’t be used for every food or takeaway option. Initially, they’ll only accept orders from the likes of Patty & Bun, Signorelli and the restaurant Beam in Wood Wharf. Deliveroo says the service will expand to more merchants including Ole & Steen “at a later stage”, but hasn’t commented on when that’ll be.
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The Canary Wharf scheme will be followed by similar pilots in Milton Keynes, Leeds, Stockton on Tees and Nottingham, which can expect to see the teal-colored robots arrive “in the coming weeks and months”.
This will the first time Deliveroo has used autonomous delivery vehicles in the UK, and it’s likely to be just the start. The announcement will spark concerns among human Deliveroo riders, but the company has promised that “the majority of orders will continue to be fulfilled by Deliveroo’s extensive rider network”. And given the limitations of these four-wheeled robots, that’s likely to be the case for a while.
Analysis: The delivery robots and drones are coming
Deliveroo is far from the first delivery giant to experiment with robot delivery recently. Since October 2025, the company has been owned by the US giant Doordash, which has already partnered with Coco’s robots in the likes of Los Angeles, San Jose, Chicago, Miami, Washington D.C and Helsinki.
Just last week Doordash also revealed its new delivery drone for North California, which can apparently get food to you in under five minutes — although it was launched to a background hum of Texas residents complaining about the noise from Amazon’s first Prime Air drones. Evri also recently announced a trial of its first two-legged robot delivery drivers in the UK.
While some pedestrians might not be thrilled about sharing the pavements with a growing army of delivery ‘bots, there is one potential benefit for the blind and partially-sighted. Coco’s robots are able to share real-time data on pavement hazards with the popular GPS navigation app BlindSquare.
“Coco’s robots are essentially a real-time accessibility mapping network, feeding hazard data, discarded e-scooters, temporary construction, straight into BlindSquare’s self-voicing app, giving blind and partially sighted pedestrians the crucial seconds they need to navigate safely,” said BlindSquare’s founder Ilkka Pirttimaa.
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