Papa Johns expands Google partnership with drone delivery pilot
Papa Johns continues integrating leading-edge technology from Google into its operations.
The world’s third-largest pizza delivery company is launching a pilot with Wing, the on-demand drone delivery provider supported by Google parent company Alphabet.
[READ MORE: Alphabet reaches historic first in commercial drone delivery]
The initial pilot program delivers the new oven toasted sandwich menu item from Papa Johns via Wing drone in Charlotte, N.C. This marks Wing’s first direct partnership with a national restaurant brand, although DoorDash does deliver from national food service chains in some markets using Wing drones, including a program in Dallas-Fort Worth that includes Papa Johns.
The Charlotte pilot is initially launching via the Wing app, with plans to soon integrate Wing’s drone network directly with Papa Johns first-party app and Lou AI, its recently launched digital pizza assistant which runs on Google Cloud.
"We are fundamentally shifting how our customers interact with our brand on digital platforms,” said Kevin Vasconi, chief digital and technology officer at Papa Johns. “With our agentic in-app ordering capabilities and Wing’s ultra-fast delivery, we are redefining the entire ordering experience, ending with fresh, hot Papa Johns delivered by drone right to our customers’ homes.”
This drone delivery effort is is the latest initiative in a longstanding partnership between Papa Johns, which migrated its data centers to the Google Cloud platform in 2021, and Google.
Other notable joint efforts between the two companies include the 2025 launch of a number of AI development projects, including proactive suggestion of orders based on learned customer preferences and anticipated needs, real-time website personalization, AI-driven marketing campaigns that can deliver personalized offers, and an AI chatbot.
And in another recent effort to upgrade its delivery capabilities which extended beyond Google, the pizza retailer began deploying the Deliverect Smart Dispatch & Delivery Management platform across all U.S. restaurants with the goal of full rollout by the end of 2027. The platform allows Papa Johns to execute all orders, whether fulfilled by in-house delivery drivers or third-party service partners, through a single, intelligent system that connects every ordering channel, point-of-sale and delivery workflow into a “unified operational delivery orchestration hub.”
"This partnership is a true collaboration, bringing together Wing’s pioneering technology and Papa Johns commitment to innovation," said Heather Rivera, chief business officer at Wing. “Together, we are defining a new blueprint for how agentic commerce and industry-leading operational design will shape the future of food delivery.”
Charlotte residents can check their eligibility and sign up for updates on the Wing app.
Papa Johns is co-headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., and Louisville, Ky., and is the world's third-largest pizza delivery company with more than 6,000 restaurants in approximately 50 countries and territories.
