Scaling Sidewalk Autonomy: How Serve Robotics Is Reinventing Last-Mile Delivery
Ali Kashani, Co-Founder & CEO, 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.
Recorded on Wednesday May 14, 2025
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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
