AI “agents” are software that can order food for you through a chat interface. They could shift power away from big delivery apps like DoorDash by placing orders without the user ever opening those apps. Small startups such as Bites are testing the idea.
Agentic food ordering
Most people order takeaway today by opening a delivery app. They scroll through restaurants, pick dishes, pay and track the order. The app sits between the customer, the restaurant and the courier, and it takes a cut from each transaction.
Agentic food ordering replaces much of that browsing with an AI system that acts on the user’s behalf. Someone might type or say what they fancy, a budget or a dietary need. The agent then looks at menus, makes a choice, and places and pays for the order. “Agentic” is the industry’s word for AI that carries out tasks rather than only answering questions.
The shift matters because the delivery business depends on who controls the customer’s first point of contact. If people start asking an assistant instead of opening an app, the app may lose its place as the default storefront. That could happen even if the app still handles the delivery itself.
Origins of the shift
Delivery platforms grew with the smartphone. They gathered thousands of restaurants into one place and built courier networks to serve them. Over time a few large companies came to dominate many markets. The Verge reports that DoorDash, the leading app, handled 970 million orders in its second quarter this year and brought in $4.5 billion in revenue.
Two separate trends now meet. Large language models have become good at reading unstructured text such as menus and turning loose requests into specific choices. At the same time, technology companies have been building AI tools that can browse websites, fill in forms and complete purchases. Food ordering suits these tools well: it happens often, the choices follow a pattern, and many customers find comparing menus tedious.
The Verge’s report features Bites, a 10-person startup at the pre-seed stage. It has signed up roughly 300 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. Against DoorDash’s scale it is tiny, and the report treats it as a small but telling sign of where the market may go. The source material provided here does not fully describe what Bites launched this summer or how its product works, so those details are not covered.
How it works today
Systems differ in their details, but agentic ordering generally follows the same steps:
- Understanding the request. The model turns a request such as “something spicy, vegetarian, under a set price, delivered soon” into structured criteria.
- Finding options. The agent searches the menus it can reach. These may come from restaurants that have signed up directly, from public websites or from existing delivery platforms.
- Deciding. It weighs price, distance, past preferences and reviews, then either suggests a short list or chooses on its own, depending on how much freedom the user has given it.
- Carrying out the order. It places the order, pays with stored details and arranges delivery. Delivery may be done by the restaurant’s own staff, a third-party courier service or an existing platform.
Signing restaurants up directly, as Bites appears to be doing, gives the agent reliable menu data and a clear commercial relationship. Agents that work through other companies’ websites have more obstacles: those sites may block automated access, change their layouts, or show prices and availability that differ from what a person would see.
The economics remain uncertain. Delivery apps make money from restaurant commissions, customer fees, subscriptions and advertising placements. An agent that skips the app’s interface weakens the advertising part in particular, because promoted listings work only when a person is scrolling. How agent-based services will charge, and whether restaurants will pay them less than they pay current platforms, is not yet known.
Common misconceptions
That AI removes the need for couriers. The agent handles the ordering. Someone still has to carry the food, so delivery networks stay essential whoever controls the ordering.
That small startups are about to replace incumbents. Bites has a few hundred restaurants in one region, and DoorDash processes hundreds of millions of orders a quarter. The threat to the big platforms comes less from any one challenger and more from the possibility that the customer relationship moves to AI assistants in general.
That the large platforms are standing still. Established delivery companies have every reason to build their own AI features or to make deals with AI assistant providers. How far each has gone is beyond the scope of this article.
That agents choose neutrally. An agent’s recommendations depend on which restaurants it can see, how it was designed and who pays it. Commercial arrangements can shape its choices just as paid placements shape what appears at the top of an app.
Where to look next
Readers following this subject should look at technology journalism on AI agents and online shopping. Company filings and earnings reports from the listed delivery platforms show how dependent those businesses are on advertising and fees. Trade publications for the restaurant industry cover what commissions mean for independent restaurants. Policy debates about platform competition and gig work also bear on how any shift towards agent-based ordering would affect couriers and restaurants.
Frequently asked questions
What is agentic food delivery?
Agentic food delivery means an AI system that orders food for a person instead of the person browsing an app themselves. The user describes what they want, perhaps with a budget or dietary needs. The agent compares menus, picks an option, and places and pays for the order. Couriers still deliver the food. What changes is who handles the choosing and ordering at the start.
Could AI replace DoorDash?
No such replacement has happened, and there is no evidence that it is about to. DoorDash handles enormous volumes, with 970 million orders in one recent quarter according to The Verge. The more realistic risk to large platforms is that AI assistants become the place where customers start their orders. That could reduce the platforms’ control over customers and their advertising income, even if they still carry out deliveries.
What is the startup Bites?
Bites is a small food ordering startup, featured by The Verge as an example of agentic delivery. It has about ten staff, is at the pre-seed funding stage, and has signed up around 300 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. The full details of its product, pricing and growth plans are not covered in the source material behind this article.
Do restaurants benefit from AI ordering agents?
That is not yet clear. In principle an agent that deals with restaurants directly could charge lower commissions than current platforms and send orders to places that pay little for advertising. But agents could also bring in new middlemen and new forms of paid ranking. Whether restaurants end up better off depends on business models that are still being worked out.
Are AI food ordering agents safe to use with payment details?
Any service that stores card details and places orders on its own carries risks. These include incorrect orders, unauthorised purchases and data security. Users should check whether an agent asks for confirmation before paying, what spending limits it allows and how refunds work. Safeguards differ between services, and early-stage products may offer fewer protections than established platforms.
Sources and further reading
- The Verge: reporting on agentic AI in food delivery, including figures for DoorDash and the startup Bites
- Quarterly earnings releases from publicly listed delivery platforms, for order volumes and revenue
- Restaurant industry trade publications covering commissions and the economics of delivery
- Technology policy research on platform competition and AI agents in online commerce
Surfaced from the rss:verge signal “AI agents in delivery”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
