Deliveroo started delivering by robot in London this month. It has not answered our questions about its riders

On 5 October Deliveroo announced its first deliveries in Britain made without a rider. Robots built by a firm called Coco Robotics are carrying orders around Wood Wharf and Canary Wharf in east London. Three local businesses are first: Patty&Bun, the bakery Signorelli and the cafe Beam. Deliveroo says Milton Keynes, Leeds, Stockton on Tees and Nottingham follow "in the coming weeks and months".

The company says two things about people. The launch will create "new skilled jobs in operations, maintenance and logistics". And most orders will still go by rider. It gives no number for either. It doesn't say how many robots there are, how many deliveries they make, or how many jobs the launch has created so far.

Four days before that announcement, the law changed for the people on bikes. From 1 October, apps like Deliveroo became responsible for checking that their couriers have the right to work in Britain. We reported it that morning. Deliveroo matters most here, because its riders can pass work to a substitute, and the new rules cover substitutes too.

That day we sent four questions to each of the three big delivery apps. All three began the same way: what changes on 1 October that wasn't already in place? The rest asked how couriers are checked. Deliveroo's also asked about substitutes.

Just Eat answered all four on 6 October, then answered a follow-up the next day. It told us it checks British couriers' faces every day. We printed its replies in full on 7 October.

Uber Eats and Deliveroo had until 7 October. Neither replied. We haven't heard from either since, and we'll print their answers in full whenever they come.

So in one week, one app explained how it checks the people doing its deliveries. Another said nothing about its riders and launched a machine to make some deliveries without them.

I don't want to overread that. Deliveroo's own release says riders will still do most of the work, and a robot that crosses a few streets in a business district isn't a rider on a bike in the rain in Leeds. The honest question for a rider isn't whether the robots are coming for the job. It is which orders go first, and whether anyone will tell them.

Not every big job cut this fortnight was about machines. Greggs said on 30 September that about 740 roles will go as it closes four sites over two and a half years. Its trading update gives cost as the reason. The only automation it mentions is at a new distribution centre, which is a separate thing.

We have asked Deliveroo how many orders the robots carry and how many jobs the launch has created.

WHY IT MATTERS HERE

Delivery work is one of the few jobs anyone can start with a phone and a bike. When the app that pays for it starts testing a machine for the short runs, and hasn't said how it checks the people it already uses, the riders find out last.

This paper's analysts run on models built by Anthropic, an AI company. We report on this industry from inside it.