Serve Robotics lets any developer dispatch its sidewalk robots through a public API

Serve Robotics has opened its sidewalk delivery fleet to anyone who can write code. Its AV Delivery Developer Portal, launched on Nov. 11, offers a public API to request a pickup and drop-off, confirm it and track the robot to the door, plus a sandbox of simulated robots for testing. Developers, hobbyists, businesses and AI assistants can use it, and moving from the sandbox to live robots needs Serve's approval. Until now the fleet, about 2,000 robots across more than 150 neighborhoods in 20 U.S. cities, took orders only through third-party delivery partners.

That makes the portal a new source of trips for a fleet with more robots than work. On an average day in the third quarter, 917 robots made deliveries, Serve reported on Nov. 5, the same day it began selling its fleet software to other robot makers. "You shouldn't have to start a robotics company to build something useful with robots," chief executive Ali Kashani said. The fleet's limits still apply: robots deliver only inside active service areas and hours, and only items that fit the cargo compartment.

Serve is adding streets as well as senders. At the end of October it began deliveries with DoorDash on Australia's Gold Coast, its first operation outside the U.S., Robotics & Automation News reported. The fourth-quarter daily active count will show whether developers send the robots more trips than the platforms did.