From December 2025, Uber Eats will roll out autonomous delivery robots in the UK via a partnership with Starship Technologies. The initial trial covers Leeds and Sheffield, with plans to expand across Europe in 2026 and the US in 2027.
These six wheeled bots carry food orders over short distances, up to around two miles, typically completing deliveries in under 30 minutes. They operate at Level 4 autonomy, meaning they can navigate sidewalks and crowded urban areas without a human controller present in real time.
For customers, this means ordering on the usual app and receiving a notification when the robot arrives. The lid unlocks via phone, the bot rolls up, you grab your meal and off it goes. For restaurants and merchants, it offers a lower-cost option for last-mile delivery in high-density zones.
That said, there are real questions. What happens with human couriers if robots take a larger share of local deliveries? Local regulation in the UK isn’t yet uniform when it comes to robots on pavements, so council by council approval will play a role. And then there’s the matter of human nature. Sooner or later someone will try to open a robot that isn’t theirs, not out of curiosity, but because there are people amongst us who are simply thieving bastards.
In short: robot food delivery is no longer science fiction. Uber Eats and Starship Technologies are making it real, starting modestly, but with the intent to scale. The next time your takeaway is brought by something that looks like a mini crate on wheels, you’ll know why.
