DoorDash drivers are taking on more work that doesn't involve delivering

DoorDash is providing more ways for gig workers to earn cash, including by assisting autonomous systems such as robotaxis and delivery bots. Bloomberg/Getty Images DoorDash workers are increasingly doing more than just delivering as the company adds new services and autonomous offerings.At the company's San Francisco headquarters on Tuesday, Cody Aughney, DoorDash's vice president of dasher & logistics, said its gig workers — known as Dashers — have completed more than 5 million tasks that didn't involve traditional delivery work since 2024.Aughney said those tasks include assisting autonomous vehicles and helping retailers get updated photos of their shelves and inventory.Gig workers on the app have been able to take on smaller tasks for extra cash.Waymo, Alphabet's robotaxi service and a DoorDash partner, has already been enlisting nearby Dashers to close doors passengers leave ajar — an operational gap that comes when the human is removed from the driver's seat. One Reddit post showed how a driver was offered $11.25 to close a Waymo door, Business Insider previously reported.Harrison Shih, the head of DoorDash's drone program, told Business Insider that a Dasher could be dispatched to clean up a spill and that the range of tasks will evolve as the company expands its autonomous services.The work could include helping Dot, DoorDash's delivery robot, if it's ever flipped over, Shih said. Delivery bots can be a target of vandalism or trip up in the dense urban environments they typically operate in."One thing we believe about autonomous systems is that they're not stand-alone," Shih said. "I think this is a little bit of the misnomer of autonomous systems."DoorDash is also launching a new service called Dasher Returns, in which a driver picks up a customer's return item and takes it to the appropriate retailer for a flat fee. "Dasher Mike heads to the store, he finds parking, he waits in line, and he makes sure that my return is processed," Shanna Prevé, chief revenue officer at DoorDash, said in a presentation. Read next Lloyd Lee is a reporter at Business Insider covering frontier technologies, with a focus on how they're being deployed in the real world and the gaps and tensions that emerge as people, companies, and regulators respond. His coverage has featured autonomous vehicles, EVs, robotics, brain-computer interfaces, and AI.Lloyd's reporting on the progress of Alphabet's Waymo and Tesla's autonomous ambitions was recognized by the San Francisco Press Club with a Bay Area Journalism Award.Before joining Business Insider, he was a local reporter for Almanac News and Palo Alto Weekly, covering housing issues, small businesses, and notable Silicon Valley characters.Lloyd is based in San Francisco.He can be reached via email lloydlee@businessinsider.com, or by phone at 646-768-1630, or Signal at lloyd.71.