Dive Brief:
- DoorDash has launched the ability to place orders through text messages, the company announced Wednesday. Customers can apply to join the beta version by joining a waitlist.
- Text orders can start with requests for a specific dish or a request for a suggestion, and DoorDash will send back its recommended order. Users can then complete the order from within the text thread.
- Once DoorDash has enough familiarity with a user, it can handle orders through text messages like “order me the usual” based on prior activity. DoorDash can also send proactive messages based on daily habits.
Dive Insight:
DoorDash has been experimenting with agentic AI capabilities through tools like DoorDash Ask, and the company’s ultimate goal is to make ordering simple regardless of channel.
Co-founder and CEO Tony Xu has acknowledged that third-party agentic traffic to DoorDash has been low, but he said the company would continue to invest in the technology during an August earnings call. Agentic commerce for the category requires meeting specific needs, and DoorDash is looking to fill the void.
“If you look at it from a consumer's perspective, consumers don't really care what you call this thing, whether you call it agentic flows and pre-agentic flows, post-agentic flows,” Xu said on the call. “They honestly just care about getting their burrito or their pair of Nike or their stock of weekly groceries. That's what they care about.”
With Ask DoorDash, discovery has been a key use case for consumers.
Between June and August, Ask DoorDash users discovered more than 40,000 new restaurants, according to DoorDash. Nearly half of Ask DoorDash restaurant orders have delivered food from nearby locations the customer never tried before.
The new texting feature is putting a focus on offering greater convenience.
DoorDash highlighted times customers want to skip working through menus or browsing menus as use cases for its texting feature. Perhaps a customer is in the middle of a meeting, walking their dog or running errands, but they still want to put a food order in place.
