Key Takeaways
- DoorDash says third-party AI agents have placed only several hundred orders since they went live. It handled 993 million orders in the third quarter alone.
- That’s a warning for Meta Platforms, which plans to earn a small fee on each purchase its Muse agent completes.
- DoorDash’s $17 billion deal for Instacart is a bet that people keep ordering through its apps, not through agents.
- At 26x forward earnings, DoorDash stock sits near its cheapest in three years, which looks like too much worry about a threat that’s still years away.
Meta Platforms (META) wants a cut every time its Muse agent buys something for you. DoorDash (DASH) just showed how rarely agents are buying anyone dinner, on the same day it agreed to pay $17 billion for Instacart (CART).
At Meta Connect on September 23, Mark Zuckerberg said Meta expects to “profit by taking a small fee from transactions” that Muse completes. Muse came up again in an October 25 episode of We Study Billionaires on Shopify and agentic commerce, which covered Amazon blocking the agent. The bet has early pull. On its third-quarter call, Meta said more than 10 million people in the US and Canada set up Muse in about six weeks, and shopping was the top use.
Then came DoorDash’s October 29 call. Asked how AI agents change the business, CEO Tony Xu said: “if you look at where AI agents are today, we’re seeing maybe several hundred orders in total from some of these third-party agents.” TechCrunch named Muse among them.
DoorDash handled 993 million orders in the third quarter alone.
Not exactly a stampede.
Less Than 10 Seconds of DoorDash’s Day
Spread 993 million orders over the quarter’s 92 days, and DoorDash handles about 10.8 million orders a day, or roughly 125 a second. Every order agents have placed since they went live adds up to less than 10 seconds of a normal day.
Access isn’t what’s holding agents back, either. Agents can order from DoorDash, while Amazon locked Muse out less than two weeks after it launched. DoorDash has also built its own agents: an Ask DoorDash chatbot and a text-to-order tool. Xu said customers still mostly order through the app, and he summed up his stance this way: “my take on all things technology is you never want to fight gravity. But at the same time, you don’t want to be delusional.”
TIKR Tracks 42 Analysts on DoorDash. How Many Say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on DoorDash, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See DoorDash’s Analyst Ratings
DoorDash’s Ordinary Orders Still Pay the Bills
Wall Street isn’t counting on agents either. Analysts expect DoorDash’s revenue to nearly double, from $13.7 billion in 2025 to $25.7 billion in 2028. That’s about 20% growth a year in 2027 and 2028.
A few hundred agent orders won’t move those estimates either way.
Those ordinary orders now make money, too. DoorDash’s operating (EBIT) margin went from -14.6% in 2022 to 6.1% in 2025.
The third quarter kept that going: net income rose 91% to $466 million as revenue climbed 34% to $4.6 billion.
Instacart Is a $17 Billion Vote for DoorDash’s App
DoorDash backed that view with cash the same day. It agreed to buy Instacart for $65 a share, about $17 billion, with at least 75% paid in cash. The deal is expected to close in late 2027 or the first half of 2028.
That’s a bet that people will keep opening an app to pick their own groceries. A company that expected agents to come between it and its customers wouldn’t pay a 26% premium for another marketplace app.
If agents do take off, Xu wants to work with the companies building them, and he sees “advertising opportunities even within some of these AI agents.” That’s a different way to get paid than Meta’s. Zuckerberg wants a fee on each purchase, while DoorDash would sell ads inside the agents.
DoorDash Stock Sits Near Its Cheapest in Three Years
DoorDash trades at 26x forward earnings. That’s well below its three-year average of 39x and just above the 25x low it hit on October 29.
Agents explain only part of that discount. The rest is the spending: at least $12.75 billion in cash for Instacart, backed by a JPMorgan bridge loan of up to $13 billion, plus a deal that still needs antitrust clearance. And a few hundred orders today say little about where agents will be in a few years, given how fast Muse signed up its first 10 million users.
Conclusion
For Meta, a fee on agent purchases is worth only as much as the purchases, and at DoorDash there have been a few hundred. DoorDash still has years before agents matter to its marketplace, and at 26x the stock is priced as if that day were much closer. The fourth-quarter report early next year is Xu’s next chance to update the count. If it jumps from hundreds to millions, I’d rethink this fast.
So what is DoorDash stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what DoorDash could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
