Uber Eats will soon use robots to deliver your takeaway - but you can't tip them

• Uber Eats and Starship Technologies sign delivery partnership
• Robotic deliveries coming to parts of the UK soon
• Expansion could spread to Europe in 2026

Uber Eats has revealed it will soon be using robots from Starship Technologies to deliver food and other items to customers across the UK.

The delivery giant has partnered with the robotics firm to launch an initial trial in Leeds, before expanding to Sheffield and hopefully other parts of the UK in the future, with a European expansion planned in 2026, and the US market in 2027.

However customers won't be able to tip their robotic friend, but can rate their experience in the app, much like any typical Uber Eats delivery.

Uber Eats robot deliveries

Starship robots have already become a common sight in parts of the UK, trundling along pavements to drop off items.

The company says it currently operates the world's largest autonomous delivery network with 2,700+ robots across 270+ locations, completing 100,000+ road crossings every day, creating a generated dataset of approximately 200 million crossings, which the company uses to continuously train and improve its AI models.

The robots used for Uber Eats deliveries will be able to complete deliveries in under 30 minutes for distances of up to 2 miles

"Together, we're building the infrastructure that will define the next generation of urban logistics," said Ahti Heinla, co-founder and CEO of Starship Technologies.

"Uber Eats has built the world's leading delivery platform, with the widest reach, trusted by millions across 10,000 cities. We bring scalable autonomous technology that works profitably at city scale."

The move is the latest expansion from Uber Eats and autonomous deliveries, as the company already has programs available in 9 cities with four existing partners.

Merchants in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Jersey City, Dallas, Austin, and Atlanta, already offer autonomous delivery, with pilots ongoing in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.

“Autonomous delivery is an exciting part of how we see the future of Uber Eats,” said Sarfraz Maredia, Global Head of Autonomous at Uber. “Together with Starship, we’re bringing this future to life across multiple continents, leveraging Uber’s global scale and Starship’s proven autonomy to deliver efficient and affordable experiences for consumers and merchants everywhere.”

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