Grab has launched GrabFood Delivery Doodles which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to turn children's doodles of their favourite dishes magically into food orders delivered via GrabFood.

Children of employees and friends have submitted over 10,000 doodles that are being used to train Grab Delivery Doodles’ AI to recognise popular local dishes like Banh mi, Martabak and Nasi Lemak.

Whether it is cake, dim sum, tempura or pho, children just need to doodle their food cravings and scan their drawings using the new Delivery Doodles feature within the Grab app. Delivery Doodles will guess the dish and suggest nearby restaurants with the food to deliver it.

GrabFood Delivery Doodles is available as a pilot project in Malaysia, Viet Nam and Indonesia (the latter to start June 1).

Tram Nguyen, country director for Vietnam, Lao and Cambodia, in Google, said: "Underpinning Grab Delivery Doodles is a custom machine learning model built using tensorflow.js to run on a device in near real time. We’re hoping this will be helpful (and fun) for families as they’re spending more time at home, while also supporting businesses across the region."

Sulin Lau, regional country marketing head for Grab said: “With schools closed temporarily, it’s not easy being cooped up at home and parents are running out of ideas on what to eat every day. Grab Delivery Doodles is a great way to creatively engage children and teach them to appreciate our local food heritage while supporting local food businesses on our platform. We’re super excited to have worked with Google and all these amazing 4 to 10 year olds to make food delivery such a magical experience for others."

Grab is the leading super app in Southeast Asia, providing daily services that matter most to consumers. Today, the Grab app has been downloaded onto more than 185 million mobile devices, giving users access to over 9 million drivers, merchants and agents.

Grab offers the widest range of on-demand transport services in the region, in addition to food, package and grocery delivery services, mobile payments and financial services across 339 cities in eight countries. — VNS