Wall Street Journal - Restaurants in the U.S. receive around 4 billion food-delivery orders a year through apps alone, according to data-insights company Consumer Edge. But hungry customers often end up disappointed. Couriers juggle multiple deliveries, resulting in cold burritos. Drinks are spilled, fries are shorted. Delivery charges grow ever higher, as do suggested tips and menu prices.
Enter robotics companies, which have received around $3.5 billion in investment since 2019 in an effort to make food delivery better, faster and cheaper, according to research provider PitchBook.
Among the advances: Technologies similar to those in driverless cars such as Waymo vehicles are allowing food-delivery bots to “see” and better navigate their terrain. What is called physical AI is enabling drones to navigate the world through machine learning in ways they weren’t able to a few years ago.
“We’re constantly hearing that these restaurants are deeply unhappy with the status quo,” says Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, chief executive of Zipline, a drone delivery company that counts food as one of its fastest-growing segments.
No comments:
Post a Comment