The Pulse
DoorDash Lets U.S. Customers Order Food by Text
DoorDash is testing a text-based ordering assistant that can find restaurants, build a cart and handle checkout inside a text conversation. U.S. customers using iOS can join a waitlist for the beta, which builds on the company’s Ask DoorDas
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
More than 800,000 choices, one text thread
DoorDash says the average U.S. customer can choose from more than 800,000 menu items and grocery products on its platform. On September 30, the company announced a way to place orders without browsing its app: customers can message DoorDash what they want, review a suggested cart and check out inside the text conversation.
The feature extends Ask DoorDash, the in-app assistant DoorDash introduced earlier. Customers can name a dish, ask for a local recommendation based on their mood or request a familiar meal. DoorDash says its assistant searches nearby restaurants and menus, then sends photos of recommended dishes drawn from the restaurants’ DoorDash store pages.
“Order my usual” is the pitch
DoorDash says the assistant can remember a customer’s preferences and use them on future orders. A request such as “order my usual” can account for details like skipping cilantro or adding extra sauce, without the customer restating the restaurant and meal. The company also says the assistant can combine different quantities and dietary preferences for a group order.
Andy Fang, DoorDash co-founder, described the service as a way to take everyday errands off customers’ hands. “Managing tasks like ordering lunch or groceries shouldn't feel like work,” Fang said. He said DoorDash built “a personal shopper” to help customers discover and compare items, and said the company wants to automate familiar orders such as a protein bowl or morning latte.
The beta starts with a waitlist
The text-ordering service is not yet generally available. DoorDash says U.S. customers using iOS can join a waitlist to try it in beta; the company has not announced a broader launch date.
DoorDash points to early use of Ask DoorDash as evidence of demand for recommendations: in the three months after its launch, customers discovered more than 40,000 restaurants through the assistant, and nearly half of Ask DoorDash restaurant orders went to local spots customers had not tried before. Those figures cover orders from June through August 2026 and come from DoorDash.
Text ordering also reaches groceries
The announcement pairs the restaurant feature with grocery updates inside the app. Customers can prompt DoorDash to rebuild a regular grocery cart with one tap, then review suggested lower-priced equivalents before checkout. DoorDash says it checks the preferred grocer’s shelves in real time and shows the potential savings so customers can accept or reject the substitutions.
The company says grocery baskets built with Ask DoorDash are assembled five times faster than traditional baskets, based on DoorDash Marketplace data from June 2026. It also reports that those baskets have nearly 50% higher value and about 60% more distinct items than the same customers’ traditional orders, based on orders placed from August through early September. The text-ordering beta’s first step, however, is narrower: U.S. iOS customers can join the waitlist and try ordering in a conversation.