British delivery company Evri has launched a trial of a self-propelled, two-legged robot called Iris to assess its ability to deliver parcels in residential neighbourhoods and on uneven roads.
Concerns over privacy, parcel security and jobs
The trial prompted a wave of sarcastic comments and concerns on social media, focusing on parcel security, privacy and the possibility of the robot being stolen, as well as the impact of growing reliance on machines on human jobs. Iris is being presented as Europe’s first trial of its kind involving a self-propelled, two-legged delivery robot.
The robot can climb and descend stairs and has been designed to walk on uneven ground and surfaces. These capabilities are intended to overcome the limitations faced by wheeled autonomous delivery vehicles when dealing with steps, entrances and uneven roads. The robot can carry several parcels with a combined weight of up to 15 kilograms and travel along streets at a speed of 6 kilometres per hour.
Its design allows it to operate autonomously or remain under remote supervision and control, enabling more than one method of operation to be tested during the current trial. The company plans to assess Iris’s performance in everyday delivery environments, including residential areas and uneven roads, to measure its efficiency and the practical benefits it could offer.
Company tests model before commercial adoption
The trial’s results are expected to help determine whether it is suitable for commercial use on a wide scale, rather than treating the circulated footage as evidence that it is ready for real-world operations. Evri’s innovation chief stressed that the project is still in its early stages and that the robot is currently no more than a prototype, in an attempt to counter the exaggeration accompanying the spread of its images and videos.
He said the model’s main competitive advantage, compared with the company’s earlier automation trials, was its ability to climb and descend stairs skilfully. The official said he hoped the robot would eventually be able to leave parcels in secure locations for users.
This capability is linked to one of the main practical issues in delivery services: completing a delivery involves more than reaching the address; it requires getting to a suitable point at the home and ensuring that the parcel is placed in a secure location. The trial was launched after Evri recently merged with DHL’s UK operation.
Evri merger increases pressure on delivery operations
After the merger, the company began delivering 1 billion parcels a year, an average of nearly 2.7 million parcels a day. This volume prompted it to seek additional ways to keep pace with its operations and delivery demands. At the same time, the idea of robot delivery was met with caution by Britons, some of whom rejected replacing human workers with intelligent machines.
An episode of the programme “Networks” dated 10 October 2026 captured some of this reaction, including a comment from a user called “Phil”, who mocked the new technology’s ability to avoid familiar delivery errors.
Phil said an Evri delivery worker had delivered his neighbour’s parcels the previous day, while the neighbour received his parcels, asking how robots would perform if the human delivery worker made such a mistake. “Steve”, meanwhile, questioned the trial’s reliability, sarcastically saying that the parcel might fall to the ground several times during the attempted delivery and that the customer would be lucky if it reached a point within 100 metres of their home.
A user called “Zach” focused on privacy and the regulation of robots in public places, calling for Iris to be banned from pavements and restricted to cycle paths. He also warned that the robot might record images and sounds while travelling along the street without permission, referring to the type of data that the sensors needed to guide it and monitor its route could collect.
“Roy”, for his part, said this type of robot could be suitable inside factories, but questioned its viability as a replacement for a human postman in open spaces. He asked how it would cope with bad weather and obstacles in its path, and what safeguards would prevent thieves from taking it and stealing the parcels inside.
Concerns also extended to the future of workers in the sector. A user called “Clayton” said postal employees and delivery workers were watching the robot with caution. His comment reflects concern that the expansion of automation projects could reduce reliance on workers in the future, even though the trial is still at the prototype stage.
Evri sought to reassure its employees, stressing that they remained at the heart of its operations and commercial services. It said the purpose of testing Iris was to identify ways in which people could use technology to keep pace with delivery targets, pointing to a goal of reaching 1.4 billion parcels a week by 2030.
