Uber and drone-delivery operator Zipline announced a strategic partnership on August 17, 2026 to scale autonomous drone delivery across the United States through the Uber Eats app, with a stated goal of one million drone deliveries per day by the end of 2029. Uber will make a strategic investment in Zipline as part of the deal, and initial deployments will begin later this year in existing Zipline markets including the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metroplexes.
How The Uber Eats Integration Works
Eligible Uber Eats orders in launch markets will surface a drone-delivery option at checkout, priced against ground couriers on speed and fee. Zipline's Platform 2 (P2 Zip) — the tethered droid that lowers from a cruising drone to place packages on porches — handles the last-mile drop. Uber operations centers will handle merchant onboarding and customer support, while Zipline retains flight operations and FAA airspace management. The playbook mirrors Amazon Prime Air's push to 500 U.S. cities, but wraps it inside a consumer app that already sees hundreds of millions of orders a quarter.
Scaling Path To One Million A Day
Zipline has already flown more than 100 million commercial miles across five continents and, according to the company, sits at industry-leading unit economics. Layering Uber's demand engine on top gives the pair a plausible route to hitting the one million deliveries per day mark by 2029 — an order of magnitude above today's total U.S. drone-delivery run rate. It's also a direct challenge to Google-owned Wing and to Uber's existing drone partners such as Flytrex in Dallas and Manna in Ireland.
Why It Matters
Drone delivery has spent a decade fighting for regulatory oxygen; Uber's endorsement — and check — signals that the platform companies now see autonomous last-mile as an inevitable channel, not an experiment. Combined with Amazon's Richmond launch and Walmart's Zipline expansion, the U.S. is on track to normalize consumer drone delivery in dozens of metros within 18 months.
Reporting based on coverage from Uber Investor Relations, DroneDJ, The Drone Girl and Axios.