Uber Eats will also roll out a TikTok-like short-form video feed to promote discovery and give restaurants the chance to promote their offerings. Uber Eats has confirmed that its new feed is now under test in New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, according to an exclusive interview by TechCrunch, and the company plans on opening it globally in the near future.

With the new launch, Uber Eats is joining the ranks of other popular apps that launched short-form video feeds after TikTok took off, including Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Netflix to name a few. TechCrunch also recently learned that LinkedIn has started experimenting with its own TikTok-like feed.

New short-form videos in Uber Eats appear within carousels throughout the app, including the home screen. When you tap one of the video previews, you're dropped into a vertical feed of short-form content that you can swipe through. You'll only see content from restaurants that can deliver to you.

The feed, says Verma, is supposed to reflect the authentic look of an in-person dining experience with the sight of people preparing food and inspiring customers to try something new. You're scrolling through the feed, and suddenly, it's a video of an ice cream shop preparing a Nutella milkshake or some Indian restaurant packing the rice separately from the curry so that it doesn't get soggy when it comes to your house.

The early data shows people are much more confident trying new dishes and trying things that they otherwise wouldn't have, Verma said. Even little things, such as being able to see texture and the details of what a portion size looks like, or what's in a dish, has been really inspiring for our users.

According to Uber Eats, the videos aren't ads, since the company isn't paying for content placements with merchants.

As can be assumed, the majority of restaurants follow social media accounts on apps like Instagram and TikTok to get more new customers and market their food using short-form videos. Using this approach, the company is allowing merchants to share short-form videos directly within the Uber Eats application, thereby letting restaurants reach customers right at the point of deciding what to order. As for the consumers, many people already use their social media to find a new place and dishes to try. Therefore, Uber Eats will likely hope that its feed brings inspiration for an individual user in an attempt to look for it within the apps themselves.

Some users will not have anything welcoming about the launch of the app; they think there are too many different short-form video feeds in popular applications. While placing short-form video feeds in entertainment and social media applications makes a lot of sense, not everyone will see its placement in a food delivery application as the optimal choice.

The company also overhauled its Uber Eats Manager software, according to Verma. The software now provides personalized growth recommendations to help merchants. The software is now able to activate restaurants to sell more by offering promotion on a particular dish or adding more images to their listings on menus.

Further, the company is releasing this summer a completely new application designed for restaurant managers so that restaurants can be much more proactive on the go. For example, the application might inform a manager that a store is experiencing issues or might need to place new orders for advertisements to drive sales.

The ride-hailing giant, Uber Eats, announced that over 1 million merchants worldwide are on its platform, serving more than 11,000 cities across six continents.