Glendale sees robot delivery fleet boom, city leaders to take a closer look

Delivery robots are rolling down Glendale sidewalks and straight into a debate at City Hall, as some say, without warning, the bots just showed up.

This all comes as Serve Robotics expands rapidly across Los Angeles County, deploying hundreds of AI-powered robots to deliver meals and groceries.

"Over the course of the last year plus, we've done deliveries from over 170 restaurants in Glendale, and done over 17,000 deliveries," Vignesh Ram, Serve Robotics VP of Policy, said.

With the influx of bot deliveries, Glendale's mayor, Ardy Hassakhian, is pushing for a moratorium until service operations and impacts are better understood.

"To make sure that ultimately our sidewalks are a priority for residents and not for robots or other businesses. So we have to think of the city's safety first," Hassakhian said.

Serve Robotics insists it works with cities before launching, but acknowledges that somehow, Glendale city leaders were caught off guard.

Others on the council say so far, so good. "There's nothing wrong with these little delivery carts, it serves a purpose, everyone's happy, they're not causing accidents …," Ara Najarian, Glendale city councilmember, said.

Serve Robotics says over 99 percent of deliveries go off without a hitch. For now, the robots will keep their jobs in Glendale, but for how long remains to be seen.

"This is hopefully a fruitful, long-term relationship," Ram said.