DoorDash’s early data suggests that its own AI shopping assistant can encourage larger and more varied orders, while the company remains cautious about predicting how quickly AI agents will become a routine way to buy food and other goods. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said the company wants to follow the technology’s momentum without losing sight of its current limitations.
DoorDash’s AI tools are separate from third-party agents
Xu’s discussion of ordering through “third-party agents” does not include DoorDash’s own in-house AI tools. Those tools include the company’s Ask DoorDash feature, rolled out this summer.
Ask DoorDash can, for example, create an online shopping cart from a photo of a recipe or suggest orders based on a vague request such as “Dinner for a family of four.”
DoorDash does not publish detailed statistics about this type of usage. However, the company said last month that Ask DoorDash baskets are created “5x faster” than baskets made without the tool. It also said Ask DoorDash orders have, on average, nearly 50 percent higher basket values and approximately 60 percent more unique items than traditional orders from the same consumer.
Nearly half of Ask DoorDash orders also go to “local spots consumers have never tried before,” according to the company, potentially helping customers discover new local restaurants.
An early stage for AI-powered ordering
The current experience of ordering through agents on DoorDash may one day seem as ordinary as online food ordering does now. Pizza Hut first experimented with online ordering in 1994, when it would have been difficult to imagine today’s market, in which more than half of Pizza Hut orders are made online.
AI agents could similarly become a common way to order food and other goods within a few years. If that happens, today’s early statistics may eventually seem surprising. For now, however, Xu appears relatively calm about the initial numbers.
“My view on technology in general is that we never want to fight gravity,” he said of AI agents. “But at the same time, we don’t want to be delusional.”
Source: arstechnica.com
