DoorDash will now pay delivery drivers for snapping photos and other tasks “to digitize the physical world”

DoorDash is best known for its delivery service – but the app will soon also pay users to complete tasks – including snapping photos.

DoorDash’s newest feature is called Tasks, a way for DoorDashers to earn money by completing a specific task that the app pays for delivery. One example of Tasks? Taking photos.

The new Tasks are two-fold. First, the company has launched a separate app called Tasks, where users earn money by submitting videos and audio. This content is used to train AI and robotics. Uploading a video of loading the dishwasher, for example, may help robots understand the task.

But Tasks will also be integrated into the DoorDash app by giving delivery drivers the option to complete a task while on a delivery. DoorDash explains that users may be asked to take a photo of a restaurant’s dishes for their menu or snap images of the front door of a hotel to aid delivery drivers.

Tasks aren’t always photo-related. Other examples of the new Tasks include scanning store shelves or closing the door of an autonomous delivery vehicle.

The photo-related DoorDash examples aren’t exactly asking for professional photography like some photo-specific gig-finding platforms. Instead, DoorDash Task General Manager Ethan Beatty describes the role as more to “digitize the physical world.”

“It’s simple: you can’t deliver to a door you can’t find or get someone milk if you don’t know what’s on the shelf,” Beatty said. “These are the kinds of real-world problems we’ve been solving for over a decade, and we realized the same capabilities that helped us could help other businesses too. The goal of Tasks is to help more businesses understand what’s happening on the ground and gather new insights, all while giving Dashers a new way to earn on their own terms. There are more than 8 million Dashers who can reach almost anywhere in the U.S. and who want to earn flexibly beyond delivery. That’s a powerful capability to digitize the physical world.”

The company notes that the fee for those Tasks will vary based on “the effort and complexity” and will be shown up front. The screenshot that DoorDash shared, for example, offers $16 to scan a store shelf while also shopping for five items from the same store.

For now, both the Tasks tool and dedicated app are launching only in a limited number of US markets.

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