domino’s partners with self-driving startup ‘nuro’ to pilot driverless pizza delivery

self-driving delivery startup nuro is teaming up with domino’s to trial driverless pizza deliver in houston, texas. the pizza chain announced on monday (jun 17) and that a pilot service would begin later this year with domino’s using nuro’s driverless fleet of custom-built robot cars to deliver pizza to select houston residents.

images and videos courtesy of nuro

domino’s says that select customers who place an online order with a participating store will have the chance to opt for a robot delivery. customers will then be able to track the delivery car’s location using the domino’s app and, when it arrives, will usa a unique pin code to unlock the car and retrieve their pizza.

domino’s has developed other technologies in a bid to change the pizza delivery experience. a couple of years ago it announced integration with work-based chat platform slack, making it easier for coworkers to talk about and order domino’s for their lunch. more recently it announced the use of a robotic scanner that employs artificial intelligence to the check the quality of its pizzas before they are sent from the restaurant.

self-driving delivery company nuro was started in 2016 by two ex-google engineers, who have since been working with other major companies to develop its services. last year it announced a partnership with kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US, to pilot autonomous deliveries in arizona. the long-term business plan involves offering small business the chance to rent its fleet of autonomous robots so that they can provide additional delivery options to consumers.