DoorDash and Uber tap gig workers to collect data for everything from training AI to stocking stores

• DoorDash is offering gig workers new tasks, such as photographing store shelves and training AI.
• Other companies, such as Uber and Instacart, are experimenting with similar gigs.
• It shows how gig work is expanding beyond delivery and ride-hailing.

Forget delivering food or driving people to the airport: Training AI and snapping photos of store shelves might be the gig work of the future.

DoorDash is starting to offer gigs beyond delivering food and other orders, the company said on Thursday. Dubbed DoorDash "tasks," the gigs involve taking photos of store shelves to monitor what's out-of-stock or helping a self-driving delivery vehicle get back on the road.

The delivery service is also piloting a new app that lets gig workers help train AI by completing jobs "like filming everyday tasks or recording themselves speaking in another language," the company said.

The new gigs show how DoorDash can use its existing delivery workforce for other areas of the business where it still needs to improve its AI or retail technology, Guggenheim Securities analyst Taylor Manley told Business Insider.

While tracking a store's inventory and delivery through self-driving vehicles will likely be the work of AI one day, it's creating opportunities for gig workers for now.

"This is a new-world problem, and they're applying an old-world solution to it," Manley said.

DoorDash isn't the first major delivery or ride-hailing app to move into tasks outside those areas.

Last year, Instacart said it was piloting a feature that lets gig workers photograph store shelves and displays to help track what's in stock and let food brands know how their products look on-shelf.

And Uber has said it's using gig workers, from drivers to workers with graduate degrees, to train AI.

AI training and inventory tracking are becoming a side hustle for gig workers

For now, the gigs are largely a supplementary source of income for delivery and ride-hailing workers. But that could change as self-driving vehicles become more common for both of those tasks.

One DoorDash gig worker in Texas told Business Insider that she completed one of the company's new tasks at a grocery store as part of a pilot last October. The gig involved taking about 180 photos of specific sections of the store, such as the dairy and cereal sections. It paid about $36 and took around 30 minutes to complete. DoorDash didn't say what the photos would be used for, the worker said.

While the work wasn't as strenuous as carrying and delivering groceries, the DoorDash worker said she has stuck to delivering orders since.

Right after taking the photos, the worker said she delivered a grocery order for $62.

"I'm doing that instead next time," she said.

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