DoorDash is paying delivery couriers to submit video clips and complete other digital tasks to help improve artificial intelligence and robotics models. The company has formalised what was previously scattered across its platform into a dedicated offering: a new app called Tasks, listing paid opportunities for activities such as recording an unscripted conversation in Spanish, or filming themselves completing various household chores like loading a dishwasher, handwashing dishes or folding clothes.
One example of a task involves asking a courier to capture footage of their hands washing at least five dishes while wearing a body camera, holding each clean dish in frame for a few seconds before moving on to the next. The company says pay is shown upfront and calibrated to the effort and complexity of each assignment, positioning the program as a flexible way for Dashers to earn beyond deliveries while contributing to next-generation AI.
The logistics are straightforward. DoorDash is tapping its 8 million U.S. contractor network to meet demand for the kind of unique, real-world datasets companies need to train specialised AI models. Robots and AI systems trained on lab footage or generic stock images often fail when confronted with actual kitchens, neighbourhood streets, and the messy reality of the physical world. DoorDash says Dashers have completed more than two million tasks since 2024, suggesting the program already has substantial momentum.
The original audio and video footage submitted by workers will be used to evaluate both the company's in-house AI models and those developed by its partners in the retail, insurance, hospitality, and technology sectors. DoorDash is not alone in this approach. Uber and Instacart have made similar moves over the past year, suggesting this is becoming standard practice across gig platforms rather than a one-off experiment.
What remains troubling, however, is the fundamental mismatch between what workers provide and what they receive. If that video helps train an AI model worth millions, is a $5 task payment fair? No average rates or payment floors have been disclosed. Pay is determined upfront on a per-task basis, weighted for effort and complexity, but no average rates or floor guarantees have been disclosed.
There is also the displacement question that hovers over every Dasher's mind. Gig workers are effectively helping train the very technologies that could one day reduce the need for human labour. DoorDash has committed to commercialising its autonomous delivery platform in 2026, and DoorDash's partnership with Waymo, where delivery couriers are paid to close the doors of the self-driving cars, is also listed in the app as a task. It is a peculiar arrangement: workers solving problems that autonomous vehicles cannot yet solve, while helping those same systems improve enough one day to replace them entirely.
The geographic exclusions are telling. The standalone Tasks app and the in-app tasks are launching in select U.S. locations, excluding California, New York City, Seattle, and Colorado. The exclusions hint at the complex interplay between local labour and privacy laws and new AI data practices. Markets like NYC and Seattle have unique pay rules for app-based workers, while California and Colorado enforce robust data-privacy regimes. In other words, DoorDash is operating the program where regulation is lightest.
Privacy concerns loom as well. DoorDash has not published detail on how it handles consent, data retention, or the rights workers have over footage of themselves in their own homes. Workers who film in their own kitchens are creating permanent digital records that could surface in unexpected ways, used for purposes beyond the original task, and retained indefinitely.
The economics of gig work have always been unforgiving, but the Tasks program introduces a new layer of complexity. Workers must now choose between pursuing higher-paying deliveries or taking low-paying data-collection tasks that help build the systems designed to make deliveries fully automated. There may be a rational case for Tasks as a flexible earnings option, particularly during slow periods. But without transparency on pay rates, without clarity on how personal data is handled, and without any acknowledgement of the displacement risk, DoorDash is asking workers to gamble on their own obsolescence.