• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

Skype

August 17, 2017

Delivery Platform DoorDash Hires Marble’s Robot Drivers For Food Delivery

If you live in San Francisco and order from DoorDash, you might find a friendly Marble robot on your front door step the next time you get takeout. Today DoorDash announced it would be using autonomous ground-delivery robots made by Marble, a robotics startup, for a food delivery pilot program in select San Francisco neighborhoods.

Marble was founded in 2015 by robotics enthusiasts Matt Delaney, Jason Calaiaro, Kevin Peterson while they attended Carnegie Mellon and describes themselves as a “scrappy robotics startup” working to build autonomous urban delivery robots. Scrappy as they might be, DoorDash is the second delivery pilot they’ve announced this year, partnering in April with Yelp’s Eat24.

The companies report that the pilot will allow them to “explore how to best optimize last-mile deliveries” and the first restaurant to take part in the robot delivery program fast food chain Jack in the Box. They made a quick video to show off Marble robots toting its first DoorDash deliveries in the North Beach neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Jack in the Box | Robot Delivery

The revenue model for robotics companies to partner with retail or food delivery services hasn’t been fully divulged; a spokesperson did say that Marble is being compensated for the work done in the pilot but declined to elaborate. However, delivery fees for a robot driver versus a human are the same for DoorDash customers. Marble said it didn’t have any hard data about how robot drivers create cost savings for delivery companies but that it hoped to share that information down the road.

Food delivery is an increasingly crowded space; aside from traditional restaurant delivery, “new delivery models” – companies like DoorDash, GrubHub and Eat24 – is expected to be a $20 billion market by 2025 according to a McKinsey report. In order to create efficiencies and differentiate, companies are looking to innovations like robot delivery drivers to stay ahead. And Marble isn’t the only game in sidewalk robotic delivery – former founders of Skype launched autonomous robotics startup Starship and received a $17 milllion investment earlier this year from carmarker Daimler Benz.

Starship had also announced a pilot in Redwood City, CA with DoorDash earlier this year. When asked if this program was designed to replace the competitive pilot, DoorDash responded that it was “…continuing the existing pilot with Starship in Redwood City, Washington DC, San Carlos and Sunnyvale. The Marble partnership adds to that relationship, allowing DoorDash to bring robot deliveries to San Francisco while also testing a new type of form factor and technology.”

Meanwhile, if you happen to see a Marble delivery robot on the sidewalk, you’ll probably see a human chaperone with it to answer questions and assist with interactions. At times when there isn’t a person nearby, Marble says they have remote operators ready to assist with issues and so far, they haven’t encountered any problems in the neighborhoods they’re serving.

May 29, 2017

Meet Heston Bot, A Skype Bot That Helps You Figure Out What To Make For Dinner

At the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of food, the race is on to build the bot that truly hits the spot. From bots that “go where consumers are,” to chatbots that help you track food consumption, you can now interact with virtual personalities of many types. Microsoft, one of many companies increasing its investments in AI, is now betting on a bot with probably the world’s most famous chef to raise awareness of its bot platform.

The company has launched “Heston Bot,” its first ever food-inspired bot, exclusively for the Skype platform. It lets you get up close and personal with superstar chef Heston Blumenthal, and provides several ways for you to benefit from his fluency with food.

According to Microsoft: “Combining a lifetime of culinary experimentation with the power of conversational computing, the Heston Bot provides users with eye-opening cooking tips, exclusive seasonal menus, and personal anecdotes directly from the master. Every month, the Heston Bot will deliver to you new recipes based on different seasons and themes, so you never get bored with the same recipes. And stay tuned during the weeks in between episodes for additional bursts of cooking info, stories, and chats from Heston.”

To add the Heston Bot within Skype, search for “Heston Bot” in the Skype Bot Directory and click “Add to Contacts.” Once you’ve done that the bot can interact with you in the same ways you interact with friends, family or colleagues. You can watch a video of Heston expressing his excitement about the bot here.

In branding a bot with a superstar chef, Microsoft is working from a particular AI playbook that increasingly appears to have merit. Specifically, the company is leveraging AI to complement a person’s capabilities, rather than competing with human capabilities. This is no small point in AI circles. In fact, Yale University researchers have recently conducted a series of experiments showing that enhancing personal skillsets with AI is much more promising than entirely substituting human skillsets with AI.

Cooking with Heston Bot, a Skype powered bot from Microsoft and Heston Blumenthal

In the case of Heston Bot, you can have interactive experiences with a legendary chef that can build on whatever level of cooking prowess you command. Heston Blumenthal is known as rule breaker in culinary circles, so the bot may very well challenge some of your assumptions in the kitchen.

“We’re becoming slaves to recipes,” Blumenthal said. “When you lose your fear of something not working, it does really change how you look at things.”

That message about overcoming fear was also the first statement that Heston Bot made to me as I began interacting with it. It appears to have very strong natural language and AI smarts. I asked it about cooking techniques and more, and it understood me and also directed me to where I can find all of Heston’s recipes. It’s definitely smarter than your average bot.

For more on AI and cooking, see our recent stories on the Forksy conversational foodbot, a chatbot-powered sommelier, and our interview with Michael Gyarmathy, the creator of an Alexa Skill called Cooking Competition.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
 

Loading Comments...