Serve Robotics Opens Delivery Robot Fleet to Outside Developers

Serve Robotics Inc. has launched the AV Delivery Developer Portal, a public interface that lets developers, businesses, hobbyists, and AI assistants programmatically summon robots from its sidewalk delivery fleet. The company said the portal is supported by a public application programming interface, or API.

Serve also released a sandbox environment where users can build and test applications before connecting them to live robots. The company positions the portal as a way for outside builders to work with its autonomous fleet without operating robots themselves.

Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics, said users should not have to start a robotics company to build something useful with robots. He said Serve has spent years working out how robots navigate neighborhoods, while residents and workers will have needs the company has not yet considered.

Kashani said opening the fleet gives Serve a way to address those needs. The company framed the move as broadening access to sidewalk delivery robots beyond its own applications and partners.

Serve Robotics was spun out of Uber in 2021 and designs and operates robots that autonomously navigate complex, human-centric environments. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company said it has deployed more than 2,000 robots across the United States and Australia.

Those robots have reached about 3 million people and support delivery for more than 4,000 restaurants, according to Serve. The figures show the scale of the fleet that the new developer portal is intended to make available to outside users.