The AI race has begun.
Even as every tech company on the planet scrambles to adopt and perfect consumer-facing artificial intelligence systems, some, like investment management firm Crescat Capital, think that the winners will be the ones who apply the tech in "totally new and disruptive ways."
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Uber seems to be doing that.
Serve Robotics -- an Nvidia-backed startup that develops zero-emission food delivery robots -- announced a partnership with Uber May 30 to deploy up to 2,000 Serve robots as Uber Eats drivers.
The little automated sidewalk-delivery robots are just in Los Angeles at the moment, but Serve said that they will be expanding soon across the U.S.
"There's a lot of AI in here. We have dozens of different AI models. It's actually large language models, deep neural networks that let these robots understand the world; where to navigate, who to avoid," Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics told CNBC. "It can actually tell if a driver is inattentive and is about to collide with the robot, it stays out of the way. So they're really, really smart."
Kashani said that around 300 restaurants -- including 7/11 -- make use of the robots in L.A.
"These robots are more reliable in getting things to the destination than human couriers are today," Kashani said.
Serve, which was founded in 2017, started operating in 2022. The company says that its robotic deliveries have grown more than 30% month-to-month since it first began unleashing these little robot delivery boxes on the streets of L.A.
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