Delivery Hero launches Herogen autonomous software delivery agent as part of firm's everyday app push

Delivery Hero has unveiled Herogen, an autonomous software delivery agent that was first introduced to the company’s product and engineering teams in February.

Built in-house on Large Language Models (LLMs), Herogen delivers an annual coding output equivalent to 130 senior engineers, and its capacity is expanding rapidly, the company claims.

While previous generations of AI coding assistants required constant manual oversight and revisions, Herogen operates autonomously. Delivery Hero’s product and engineering teams assign tasks in natural language and Herogen then writes, tests, and iterates on the code, before submitting the result as a proposal.

A "council of agents" - built on a number of LLMs from different providers - reviews the code from various perspectives before a human does a final check. Using multiple models reduces the chance that blind spots in any single model's training data slip through.

Currently, Herogen demonstrates an 85% success rate, measured as the ratio between merged and rejected pull requests. The vast majority of tasks require zero or one interaction with the human in the loop, with built-in safeguards enabling intervention when needed. 

By autonomously merging over 100 code change requests per day, it has effectively freed up an estimated 250,000 hours of manual coding annually. Although currently adopted by only 18% of the company’s developers, it is responsible for 9% of all code change requests across Delivery Hero. The company plans to continue expanding its reach, with a goal of having it handle 20% of all code change requests by year's end. 

“As we build the ‘Everyday App’ for our customers, Herogen allows us to deliver much bigger output with the same elite team,” says Benjamin Mann, Chief Technology Officer at Delivery Hero. “It changes how our engineers spend their days, but it does not move them away from their craft.”

“As the tool takes on mundane tasks and repetitive toil, our people regain the time to solve the hardest problems, to build strong systems on a global scale and find new ways to keep us in the lead. As the software engineering profession changes, Herogen enables engineers to have more impact in a shorter time than ever before.”

"Herogen marks a fundamental shift in the interface between humans and machines, moving from complex programming languages to natural language,” says Rodrigue Schäfer, Vice President Platform at Delivery Hero. “By describing intent rather than coping with syntax, our engineers are freed to focus on what they do best: creative exploration and complex problem solving.”

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

Automation will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.