DoorDash says shoppers in Detroit are the most likely in its index to use its Ask DoorDash AI assistant to build an order. Detroit scores 178 on the company’s Agentic Messaging Index for September 2026, against 66 for Chula Vista, California, at the bottom. That is 2.7 times the rate, by our arithmetic.
The figures come from DoorDash’s new State of Local Commerce site. Co-founder Andy Fang posted on 10 November that customers are engaging with agentic commerce “in ways that continue to surprise us”, with “more traction outside of tech hubs like SF”.
Business Pill · Agentic Commerce
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on agentic commerce: what changes when the shopper is an AI agent. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss DoorDash’s index.
The key insight: DoorDash’s own Agentic Messaging Index puts Detroit at 178 and Chula Vista at 66 for AI-assisted cart building in September 2026, 2.7 times apart by our arithmetic. The company gives no user or order counts, and its chief executive counted only several hundred orders from third-party agents in October.
DoorDash describes the index as a measure of “the likelihood of using AI to assist cart building by geography”, where 100 is the average and 200 means twice as likely. The feature lets customers type requests such as “I want pasta and a gluten-free dessert” or “Build this viral salad recipe under $30”, the site says.
The site ranks 73 cities. Detroit leads at 178, followed by Baltimore at 139 and Memphis at 132. Seattle sits at 72, Honolulu at 67 and Chula Vista at 66. By our arithmetic, Detroit is 78% above the average and Seattle 28% below it. DoorDash says the figures are drawn from aggregated and anonymized consumer orders.
The company’s AI account wrote that users in Detroit, Baltimore and Memphis “are adopting Ask DoorDash more widely than those in San Francisco and other U.S. tech hubs”. DoorDash’s local-commerce report gives San Francisco an index of 119, eighth in its city ranking.
DoorDash’s Agentic Messaging Index for September 2026, top three and bottom three of 73 cities, from its State of Local Commerce site. The 2.7x multiple is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
New data that shows DoorDash customers are engaging with agentic commerce on our platform in ways that continue to surprise us.
In fact we’re seeing more traction outside of tech hubs like SF.
We’re going to double down on the momentum here and continue improving how our customers can discover and order on DoorDash
DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang posted at 18:41 UTC on 10 November that new data shows customers engaging with agentic commerce on the platform in ways that continue to surprise the company, with more traction outside tech hubs like SF, and that DoorDash will double down. This piece takes the city index values from DoorDash’s State of Local Commerce site.
Inside the App Versus Outside Agents
The index covers DoorDash’s own assistant, not outside AI agents ordering on a customer’s behalf. On that second channel, DoorDash chief executive Tony Xu told analysts on 29 October that the company sees “maybe several hundred orders in total from some of these third-party agents”, as we reported. By our arithmetic then, that was about one in a million of DoorDash’s 993 million third-quarter orders.
Business Insider’s 10 November report by Alex Bitter made the same point across apps: “AI agents aren’t taking off on apps like Uber and DoorDash”, and the tools “have generated hundreds of food and ride-hailing orders, the companies said”.
As we read it, the index points to where DoorDash wants agentic ordering to happen: inside its own app, where the assistant sits on its merchant selection and delivery network. The company’s AI account says the experience rests on more than a decade of building that physical network.
AI at DoorDash, X post, 10 November 2026
“Behind that AI ordering experience is more than a decade of building DoorDash’s physical network”
Three Implications
FOR DOORDASH Andy Fang wrote that the company will double down on the momentum and keep improving how customers discover and order on DoorDash.
FOR OUTSIDE AGENTS Business Insider reported that AI agents are not taking off on apps like Uber and DoorDash, with hundreds of orders, the companies said.
FOR MEASUREMENT The index is relative, with 100 as the average; DoorDash does not say how many customers use Ask DoorDash.
The framework reads: “The agentic surface — the harness — is becoming where value pools in the entire AI stack.”
As we read it, DoorDash’s data is about its own agentic surface, Ask DoorDash, rather than outside agents. The framework predates this data and does not discuss DoorDash.
What Is Not Established
DoorDash gives an index, not a count. The site does not say how many customers or orders use Ask DoorDash, what share of orders it touches, or how the city figures are weighted. San Francisco’s index is 119, per DoorDash’s report. We did not contact DoorDash.
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DoorDash’s own index puts Detroit at 178 and Chula Vista at 66 for AI-assisted cart building, 2.7 times apart by our arithmetic, and the company says adoption is wider outside tech hubs. Its chief executive counted only several hundred orders from third-party agents in October, so the activity DoorDash is pointing to sits inside its own app.
A note on sourcing. The index values and definition are from DoorDash’s State of Local Commerce site, read on 10 November 2026; the adoption comments are from Andy Fang’s and DoorDash’s X posts; the third-party agent figure is Tony Xu’s 29 October remark as we reported it; the cross-app view is Business Insider’s. The multiples are our arithmetic. We did not contact DoorDash.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
