Sidewalk delivery robot maker will now sell its tech to other robot builders

Serve Robotics, the company behind the googly-eyed sidewalk delivery robots, is going into a new line of work. It will sell the technology it built for its own robots to other companies that make robots. The company announced the move on Thursday, alongside its third-quarter earnings.

What changed

The new business is called Physical AI Services. Serve will offer customers its connectivity and data tools. Bedrock Robotics, a startup building self-driving systems for construction equipment, is already a customer. Serve is also working with T-Mobile to bring AI computing power closer to robots.

The delivery robots are not going away. Serve also makes a robot for hospitals, which came with its purchase of Diligent Robotics. CEO and co-founder Ai Kashani said the new unit adds to those businesses rather than replacing them.

The three products

• Serve Link connects robots in the field to AI systems running in data centers.
• A data curator tool helps companies find unusual cases in the real-world data their robots collect.
• A data catalog built from Serve's sidewalk robots is meant to teach AI models about busy human spaces.

Serve Link matters because a robot does not have to carry all its computing power onboard. It can tap into stronger AI models far away. Kashani said the hard part is staying connected on unreliable networks, and that this is what Serve solves.

Why Serve is doing this

Kashani compared the idea to Amazon's cloud business. He called it an "AWS moment," where a company opens up the technology it built for itself so others can build on it. He said that would not have been possible without running its own robot fleet first.

He pointed to farms, warehouses and other unpredictable settings as places where other companies are building robots. The move comes as Serve's sidewalk delivery business grows while shifting away from Uber and toward partners including DoorDash and Wonder.

What is not known yet

The material does not say what the services will cost, how many customers Serve has beyond Bedrock Robotics, or how much money the unit might bring in. It also does not say when the T-Mobile work will be ready. For now, the idea is simple. If robot builders can buy these tools instead of making them, robots for tougher jobs may arrive sooner.