Food delivery company DoorDash has revealed that it has received only several hundred orders from third party artificial intelligence agents, despite growing expectations that AI assistants will transform online shopping and digital commerce.

The disclosure was made during the company’s third quarter earnings call, where Chief Executive Officer Tony Xu discussed the growing use of AI powered services for ordering food and other products.

The figure remains relatively small compared with DoorDash’s reported average of approximately three million deliveries daily in 2025.

Xu explained that although AI agents are attracting considerable attention across the technology industry, their actual use in ordering services remains limited.

He noted that customers still predominantly place their orders through the company’s official application.

According to him, businesses must recognise emerging technological developments without exaggerating their immediate impact.

He described the adoption of AI agents as an evolving area that DoorDash continues to monitor.

Despite the relatively low number of orders generated through external AI assistants, DoorDash is interested in exploring opportunities within the emerging market.

Xu said the company wants to establish productive relationships with third party AI developers and better understand how customers might use these tools in the future.

He also suggested that advertising opportunities could eventually emerge within AI platforms as more consumers begin using them to make purchasing decisions.

DoorDash has also been developing its own artificial intelligence services to improve customer experience and simplify ordering.

These include a text based ordering assistant introduced in September, a command line interface agent launched in July and a chatbot called Ask DoorDash, which allows users to search for meals and place orders using written prompts and photographs.

The company has also introduced technology that enables corporate customers to place orders through other chatbot platforms.

The broader AI commerce market is still developing, with major retailers adopting different approaches to third party agents accessing their websites and services.

Amazon has taken steps to restrict certain independent AI agents, while Walmart has shown greater willingness to accommodate them as it seeks to attract additional customers.

As competition increases, DoorDash and other retailers will need to determine how best to integrate AI assistants into their businesses while maintaining control over customer relationships, transactions and security.

Source: TechCrunch