DoorDash said it’s only received ‘several hundred’ orders from AI agents

On its third-quarter earnings call, DoorDash revealed that it has received only "several hundred" orders in total from third-party AI agents such as Muse, Instinct, and Fo. The disclosure came as the delivery giant faces growing questions about whether agentic commerce is starting to reshape how consumers place orders.

For perspective, DoorDash said in its 2025 report that it completes an average of 3 million deliveries per day, meaning agent-originated orders represent a rounding error against its existing volume. CEO Tony Xu told an analyst that users still predominantly order through DoorDash's own app, while striking a characteristically hedged tone on the technology's trajectory.

"I would say that this is something that is still a very dynamic area. And my take on all things technology is you never want to fight gravity. But at the same time, you don't want to be delusional," Xu said, before citing the several-hundred-order figure as evidence that agent-driven commerce has not yet scaled.

Rather than resist the shift, DoorDash is positioning for it. Xu said the company wants to learn more about agentic use cases and build a healthy relationship with third-party agent makers, and he raised the possibility that DoorDash could advertise within those agents in the future — a potential new channel beyond its marketplace app.

DoorDash has also been building its own agent surface area. It launched a text-to-order agent in September, a CLI agent in July, and a chatbot called Ask DoorDash in June that lets users place orders using prompts and photos. It additionally released an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server designed to let other chatbots place corporate orders through its platform — an explicit bet that ordering will increasingly happen through third-party conversational interfaces.

The broader industry remains split on whether to open the door to agents at all. Amazon has been blocking personal agents from accessing its services, while Walmart has reportedly rolled out the welcome mat for them, aiming to capture business from competitors. That divergence suggests agent access policies are becoming a competitive lever in consumer commerce, even as actual agent-driven order volume remains modest.

What to watch next is whether DoorDash's several hundred agent orders start compounding once its own MCP and Ask DoorDash surfaces mature, and whether the company converts its stated openness to third-party agents into a formal partner program with revenue-sharing or advertising terms. The open questions: will Amazon hold its line against agents or reverse under competitive pressure, and does the "don't fight gravity" thesis prove out — or does agentic ordering stay a niche channel that never dents the app-first status quo?

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