DoorDash CEO Puts Third-Party AI Agent Orders At 'Several Hundred' In Total
Tony Xu says everyday ordering still runs through the DoorDash app, and the CFO targets $500 million in net synergies from Instacart in year three.
DoorDash is seeing "maybe several hundred orders in total" from third-party AI agents, CEO Tony Xu told analysts on the company's third-quarter earnings call, where the pending Instacart deal dominated the questions. DoorDash, which runs the DoorDash, Wolt and Deliveroo delivery marketplaces, has agreed to buy Instacart.
Agents: low volume, open door
Xu, DoorDash's co-founder, chair and CEO, said his rule for technology is that "you never want to fight gravity," but that "you don't want to be delusional." He said customers still see outside assistants as tools for harder purchases, not for easy tasks like ordering food.
For everyday ordering, he said, "people come to DoorDash and they come back to DoorDash." DoorDash is trading learnings with third-party assistants and building its own agents, including DoorDash Ask and Text DoorDash. It also supplies an MCP, a connection for outside tools, that third parties use for things like corporate lunch orders.
An analyst from Rothschild and Co. Redburn asked whether agent-led shopping could hurt advertising, a meaningful contributor to DoorDash's EBITDA, and whether revenue sharing with agents is possible. Xu repeated the low-volume point and said he sees advertising opportunities even within some of these agents.
The $500 million synergy model
Chief Financial Officer Ravi Inukonda laid out a three-year path. Year one goes to investment in a better product, year two to progress, and in year three he expects $500 million of incremental synergies at the bottom line, net of that investment.
He pointed to cross-listing merchants, including putting DoorDash's restaurant platform on Instacart, more consumers for packaged-goods advertisers, cross-selling Instacart's software to grocers, and denser Dasher and shopper networks. Asked about Instacart's share of grocery, he said it is public information and DoorDash would not discuss Instacart.
On why part of the price is paid in stock, Inukonda said Instacart wanted to share in the upside and that DoorDash is focused on dilution. He said the company's buyback philosophy is unchanged: conservative and opportunistic.
Grocery accuracy and the DashMart gap
Xu said grocery delivery is a fraction of its potential because customers pay a premium for imperfect delivery. DoorDash is near perfect on orders from its own DashMart sites, he said, but only in the low 90s on accuracy through third-party stores.
Separately, answering the agent question, he said the hard part of grocery is making sure orders show up as expected and in the condition wanted, not placing them.
Xu said Instacart's orders unique to the DoorDash network would add density to the last-mile network. He said grocers, who he expects to respond positively, need the tools and delivery speed to compete with the largest companies. For the same DashPass price, he said, members would get both the Instacart and DoorDash membership programs.
Core business and tech rebuild
Inukonda said restaurant growth accelerated from the second to the third quarter, with sequential growth the fastest in more than five years. Wolt and Deliveroo also accelerated. Xu said Deliveroo grew at twice the rate of a year earlier.
The single tech stack rebuild is on track for cost and timeline, Inukonda said, with completion expected in the first half of 2027. He said adding Instacart will need some investment, but not a massive one. A separate FTC review of DoorDash's pricing and Dasher pay is also under way, according to coverage of the deal.
Xu said the combined company's first job after closing is adding density to the combined network, then using scale to cut costs.
Sources
- DASH Q3 Earnings Call Focuses on Instacart Deal and Grocery Expansion — Yahoo Finance
- CART Q3 Earnings Miss, Revenues Beat, DoorDash Deal Takes Focus — Yahoo Finance
- Trump’s FTC Turns to DoorDash’s Pricing and Dasher Pay After the Instacart Deal — Yahoo Finance
- What DoorDash's bid for Instacart says about the modern delivery platform pitch — modernretail.co
- DoorDash, Inc. (DASH) Stock Forecasts — Yahoo Finance
