LONDON - Deliveroo plans to start delivering takeaways and groceries by pavement robot in Britain within weeks, beginning in London's Canary Wharf, The Times reported on Saturday, putting the DoorDash-owned app alongside rivals that already use small autonomous couriers in several English towns.

The robots will also run in Milton Keynes, Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees and Nottingham, all areas where local councils allow robot deliveries, according to the report. They are made by Coco, a U.S. company that has an exclusive deal with Deliveroo, and travel at roughly walking pace, using sensors, cameras and an AI navigation system to find their way along pavements.

Miki Kuusi, Deliveroo's chief executive, said the move was "not about replacing" human riders. "We view it as a complement," he told The Times. "Certain kinds of deliveries, certain kinds of merchants, certain neighbourhoods and places work better for autonomous deliveries."

Kuusi said the number of robots would grow as the technology improved but called it "an incremental process." "Especially in high-density, urban environments, you're always going to need people who do deliveries," he said. "It's more about what the optimal fleet split is." Deliveroo is in talks with more councils and with the Department for Transport as it seeks permission to use the robots more widely, the newspaper reported.

He also argued that the machines would cut costs. "A plastic box on wheels rolling around a city is incredibly energy-efficient, the hardware can be very low-cost, and that ultimately makes the service a lot more affordable," he said, adding that robot couriers could help local shops compete with international sellers such as Amazon and Shein.

Coco already works with Deliveroo's parent company. Its robots began making deliveries in Helsinki for Wolt, DoorDash's international arm, in early 2025, and DoorDash added Coco robot delivery in Los Angeles and Chicago in April 2025 and in Miami that November, according to company announcements. DoorDash completed its takeover of Deliveroo last year in a deal valued at about 2.9 billion pounds, and Kuusi, a co-founder of Wolt, also leads DoorDash's international business.

Rivals are further along in Britain. Just Eat says Starship Technologies robots are live for its customers in Milton Keynes, Sunderland and Barnsley, Robot24 reported, and Starship robots have delivered Co-op groceries in parts of Leeds since 2022, according to the BBC. Deliveroo is separately testing drone deliveries in Dublin.

Pavement robots have drawn objections. In July, the walking charity Living Streets said Starship robots used by the Co-op presented "a danger to pedestrians." Kuusi was dismissive of such concerns. "These are the kind of things where it's very easy to come up with all the concerns and fears on paper in theory," he said. "But then when you actually see these things on the streets and how they work as a part of the city, the reality is that they blend in quite well."

Deliveroo has not said how many robots it will deploy or given a firmer start date than the coming weeks.