Autonomous delivery robots could soon be rolling across sidewalks at hundreds more U.S. college campuses after Avride and Sodexo Campus announced an agreement to accelerate rollout of the technology at Sodexo partner colleges and universities nationwide. The deal links Avride's fleet of self-navigating delivery robots with Sodexo Campus's sprawling higher-education dining network, which already touches schools from coast to coast.
A Framework Built for Speed
The agreement, announced Tuesday, is designed to connect Avride's delivery technology with Sodexo Campus's national higher education footprint, according to Voice of Alexandria. Rather than guaranteeing robots on every campus, the pact creates a framework meant to let participating schools move from interest to implementation in weeks rather than months. Sodexo Campus works with approximately 425 higher education institutions across the United States, and Sodexo North America operates in all 50 states plus Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Avride describes itself as an autonomous mobility company that develops and operates both autonomous cars and delivery robots, with roots dating back to 2017 and headquarters in Austin, Texas, along with additional research and development hubs around the world. Its delivery robots and robotaxis are already fulfilling commercial orders in the United States and internationally. Dmitry Polishchuk said the partnership can set a new standard for how food moves across campus, while Roberta Frierson said autonomous delivery can expand access, increase convenience and support more agile campus operations.
Where the Robots Already Roll
Avride technology is currently operating at Ohio State University, the University of Arizona, Indiana University Bloomington and Salisbury University, a list corroborated by foodondemand.com. The outlet also reported that Avride's robots had completed more than 600,000 autonomous deliveries as of late July, and that launching a new campus service can take as little as two to three weeks once a school signs on.
At Indiana University Bloomington, a fleet of 24 Avride robots began rolling out starting June 8 through a partnership involving IU Dining and Hospitality, Avride and Grubhub, according to IU Today. That service carries a $3.50 charge per order. Ohio State remains Avride's largest known deployment, though the exact scale is murky: CampusIDNews and other outlets have cited robot counts ranging from 105 to 125 and daily delivery figures ranging from roughly 1,000 to as high as 1,600 during peak periods, figures that have not been reconciled into a single confirmed total. What is consistent across those accounts is that Ohio State's rover service runs daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with a $2.50 flat fee per order, and that the robots rely on lidar, cameras and ultrasonic sensors to navigate at speeds up to 5 miles per hour.
Designed for Dorms, Dining Halls and Quads
Avride's robots are built for pedestrian-heavy spaces, including walkways near residence halls, academic buildings, libraries and dining locations, using sensors and machine learning to navigate sidewalks and complete order fulfillment. Sodexo has framed the push toward automation as a way to extend access, create more flexible service models and integrate automation into existing campus systems, according to a statement carried by PR Newswire. That release detailed a separate, seven-year commercial agreement Robot.com signed with Sodexo in August, which expands on a partnership the two companies began back in 2021 across select Sodexo-operated campuses in North America.
Sodexo's robot-delivery roster is not limited to Avride or Robot.com. The company is also bringing robot delivery to four additional colleges through partnerships with Kiwibot and Starship Technologies, per Foodservice Director's report. Kiwibot is slated to serve New Mexico State, Loyola Marymount and Gonzaga, while Starship is providing the robots for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
A Shifting Robot Delivery Landscape
The broader campus-robot market has been in flux. Starship Technologies, which pioneered college robot delivery at George Mason University in 2019 before expanding to 67 campuses, announced in May that it was shifting its U.S. focus toward more lucrative grocery deliveries, according to Axios. The company reasoned that college campuses offer only about seven months of work a year, compared with year-round demand for urban grocery delivery. Axios also reported that Bowling Green State University switched to Avride robots this fall after five years with Starship on campus; Avride's entrance there came through a master services agreement with Chartwells Higher Education, which manages foodservice operations at roughly 350 U.S. campus partners, per foodondemand.com's reporting.
Despite the pivot, Starship has completed millions of deliveries. A 2025 survey of 5,000 students across 65 U.S. college campuses found that 95 percent said they liked or loved the delivery robots, the same outlet reported.
Whether every one of Sodexo's 425 partner institutions eventually gets a fleet of its own remains to be seen, but the framework announced this week gives schools a clearer, faster path to try. For now, students at Ohio State, Indiana University Bloomington, Arizona and Salisbury are already watching the rovers navigate their quads, with more campuses expected to follow as Sodexo and Avride put the new agreement into practice.
