DoorDash and Waymo just announced something that actually makes sense to me. I'm pro-Waymo for a reason—they've spent years building autonomous systems that genuinely work at scale, operating 100,000+ rides per week in San Francisco. When they deploy something, the tech is actually baked in, not a beta.

This is DoorDash's first Waymo partnership, though Waymo already runs ride-hailing in Phoenix through Uber. Now they're adding delivery across 315 square miles covering Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler.

Here's how it works: you opt-in for autonomous delivery at checkout. If matched with Waymo, you get a notification when the car arrives, open the trunk through the DoorDash app, grab your food, and you're done. No human interaction—just reliable autonomous infrastructure.

Deliveries start with DashMart—DoorDash's convenience and grocery offering—then expand to more Phoenix merchants over time. DoorDash is also throwing in a promotion where DashPass members in Phoenix, LA, and San Francisco get $10 off one Waymo ride per month through December 31.

What's interesting is seeing DoorDash build out a complete autonomous delivery ecosystem. They've got [Dot, their in-house robot](/2025/doordash-unveils-dot-delivery robot/) for bike lanes and roads, Serve Robotics for sidewalk deliveries, and now Waymo for full-size autonomous cars. That's three different form factors covering different use cases—small sidewalk robots for tight spaces, mid-size Dot for road speed, and Waymo for longer distances or larger orders.

DoorDash's Autonomous Delivery Platform acts as an AI dispatcher, matching each order with the optimal delivery method based on speed, cost, location, and experience. That's the kind of infrastructure you can build when you've got S&P 500 status and profitability backing you up.

Uber's doing something similar with their multimodal approach. They've partnered with Serve, Avride, and Cartken for sidewalk robots, Nuro and Waymo for autonomous cars, and Flytrex for drone delivery starting by year-end. Both companies figured out that no single delivery method works for everything—you need options.

The timing on this is smart. Waymo's already proven in Phoenix with their ride-hailing service, so the infrastructure and regulatory approvals are there. DoorDash gets to skip the painful early deployment phase and jump straight to commercial operations in a market where autonomous vehicles are already normal.

Critics worried autonomous delivery would kill gig work, but both DoorDash and Uber say human dashers and drivers will handle the vast majority of deliveries. Autonomous tech handles the simple, repetitive stuff—convenience store runs, short distances, predictable routes. That frees up human workers for complex deliveries requiring judgment, customer interaction, or navigating tricky situations.

What I like about this is how it proves the gig economy model works at scale. DoorDash has the financial strength to invest in cutting-edge autonomous tech while still employing hundreds of thousands of dashers. That's not replacing workers—it's building infrastructure that makes the whole network more efficient and sustainable.

Phoenix is becoming the testing ground for autonomous delivery. Between [DoorDash's Dot deployment](/2025/doordash-unveils-dot-delivery robot/) in Tempe and Mesa, this Waymo partnership, and existing autonomous ride-hailing services, the city's becoming a real-world laboratory for how autonomous vehicles integrate into daily life.

The stock market didn't love the news—DoorDash shares jumped 4% initially before reversing to close down 1%. But that's just market noise on a down day for tech stocks. The strategic value is clear: DoorDash is building the infrastructure for the next decade of delivery, and Waymo gives them proven autonomous technology at scale.

This is the future of delivery—not one solution, but a coordinated network of different autonomous technologies working alongside human workers, all optimized by AI to match the right delivery method to each order. DoorDash is betting big on that vision, and Phoenix is where we'll see if it works.

Sources: DoorDash, Waymo, Investor's Business Daily