In Fort Lauderdale, since December 2025, a dozen small, wheeled robots have been providing short-distance delivery services (maximum three kilometers), just like in Miami Beach, San Francisco, and New York.
The city welcomes modernism: « I don’t mind us being on the cutting-edge of technology now. At least with robots on sidewalks, it’s removing more cars from the roads, » says City Commissioner Steve Glassman.
Fort Lauderdale is the first city in Broward County to welcome the small robots. It was chosen by Serve Robotics, a California-based company, for its urban density. CEO Ali Kashani explains: “We need lots of residents living close by and infrastructure for robots to get around on sidewalks. Uber also has a big presence there already.”
Named Gretchen, Julio, and Gaspard, with their big round eyes, these robots packed with artificial intelligence look very friendly. The food is kept warm in the robot’s box and cannot be stolen: the lid can only be opened with a QR code or a code sent directly to the customer.
But their failures have made them the laughing stock of social media. In January, a video on TikTok showed a robot crossing railroad tracks and being violently crushed by a Brightline train. In another, a cute pink robot with heart-shaped eyes blocked traffic in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood, which might have been funny, but an ambulance was also slowed down. There are numerous videos circulating of robots that have tipped over, come to a standstill when faced with a trash can, or go around in endless loops.
Restaurant owner Adam Shidlofsky, of Mitch’s Downtown Bagels in Flagler Village, is not convinced, as he explains to Phillip Valys from the South Florida Sun Sentinel: « We put someone’s order in the [robot] once and it rolled away, and then its wheels got stuck on the curb. I’m like, this food my team works hard to prepare is getting rocked back and forth. We don’t get to control who picks it up, which is why we prefer humans. I don’t want to be a guinea pig for a glitchy robot. »
However, according to Kashani,” they’re reliable. They complete 99.8% of all deliveries. And they make the roads less congested, so what goes viral doesn’t represent what’s happening out there day to day.”
As for failures, Peter Ricci, director of hospitality and tourism management at Florida Atlantic University, says that AI is constantly adapting: “In the future, when palm fronds fall in front of it, or a dog crosses the street, or FPL trucks are fixing power lines, robot AI will learn to find different routes.”
For now, when a robot senses hostility from a human or is prevented from moving forward, it stops and connects to a central control center, where a human can take control and complete the delivery remotely.
On Uber Eats, customers do not need to tip robots, which is an incentive for them to save money. But even if you choose to have your order delivered by a robot, this is not guaranteed, as it depends on the availability of a robot and the delivery distance.
The radius extends from Dania Beach in the south to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in the north and Wilton Manors in the west.
According to Kashani, plans are underway to deploy more robots on the streets of Fort Lauderdale.
