DoorDash sees only "several hundred" AI-agent orders

DoorDash's disclosure offers a rare concrete data point on how much commerce actually flows through third-party AI agents today, and the answer is very little. The company's own 2025 report puts average daily deliveries at 3 million, so "several hundred" agent orders amount to a rounding error. That gap supports CEO Tony Xu's cautious framing: he described agent-based ordering as a "very dynamic area" where DoorDash does not want to "fight gravity" but also does not want to be "delusional." In other words, the company is hedging — staying open to agent makers while acknowledging the current numbers are tiny.

The strategic picture is complicated by the fact that DoorDash is not a passive observer. It has built its own agentic tools — a text-to-order agent in September, a CLI agent in July, and Ask DoorDash in June — and released an MCP for corporate ordering through other chatbots. That in-house work suggests DoorDash sees agent ordering as a channel it wants to shape rather than one it wants to block. Xu also floated the idea of advertising within third-party agents, which would turn a potential threat into a new revenue stream if the volume ever materializes.

The broader context is a split among major retailers. Amazon has been blocking personal agents from accessing its site, while Walmart has welcomed them to win business from competitors. DoorDash appears to be charting a middle path: it is not blocking third-party agents, but it is also not betting the business on them yet. For now, the numbers suggest the AI-agent commerce wave is still mostly talk.