DoorDash’s Dot delivery robot can drive itself through the Phoenix area at up to 20 miles per hour, but it still needs a person to put the food inside. The company has been offering its drivers about $5 to pick up restaurant orders and load them into waiting Dots, Business Insider reported.
Devena Bybee, a DoorDash worker in Mesa, Arizona, told BI she got one of the offers in early July. She drove about two miles to a restaurant, picked up the order and placed it in a Dot waiting in the parking lot, photographing each step. The job took five minutes and paid about $5. She was surprised DoorDash didn’t have a restaurant employee who was already on site do it. “I just don’t see how it’s efficient,” she said.
Similar offers have shown up in Facebook groups for DoorDash drivers. “Had a DOT order today. Had to load her up and send her on her way, quick $5.00 for going .25 miles to get there— in Scottsdale, AZ,” one driver wrote in June, according to Gizmodo. A screenshot showed the app telling the driver to “Find the Dot Robot,” with the customer’s name shown on the robot’s light bar.
“This limited pilot is designed to support merchants during busy periods, while creating more earning opportunities for Dashers outside of traditional deliveries,” a DoorDash spokesperson told BI. “Dashers are essential to our platform and will continue completing the majority of deliveries even as our autonomous technology scales.”
The handoff problem
DoorDash unveiled Dot in September 2025. It’s roughly the size of a baby stroller, carries up to 30 pounds and uses lidar, radar and cameras to travel on roads and sidewalks. CEO Tony Xu said last August, shortly before the launch, that handing orders from restaurants to robots was a challenge for autonomous delivery.
Robert Bruno, a labor and employment relations professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told BI that restaurants with many robot orders may find it cheaper to hand the task to DoorDash’s contractors, who don’t get the benefits and hourly pay most restaurant workers do. “Multiplied over the course of a year or more, there’s probably a real savings,” he said.
It isn’t the first time DoorDash drivers have filled a gap for autonomous vehicles. Some were offered gigs closing doors passengers left open on Waymo robotaxis in Atlanta, BI reported in February. DoorDash also said last week it had FAA approval to run its own drone delivery service, DoorDash Air, and acknowledged the same issue there. “The aircraft is what everyone sees. The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground,” the company said.
Bybee said the gig left her more confident that people are still needed. “There’s only so much right now that the robots can do,” she said.
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