Dive Brief:

• Uber co-founder Garret Camp is working on an app that would seemingly allow a user to send messages to order and get delivered pretty much anything he or she wants.

• The app, now dubbed Operator, would allow specific requests or more general ones like “Get me the cheapest four-pack of white, short socks that are decent quality,” according to TechCrunch.

• Retailers could have dedicated “Operators” to handle requests and fulfillment, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

TechCrunch’s source on Operator, helmed by CEO and star angel investor Robin Chan, suggests an enterprise with a whole new level of disruption for retail. It leverages a moment in retail and delivery driven by mobile and the burgeoning on-demand economy, and presumably would be dependent on a network of contractors like the drivers who have driven Uber to wild success (and snafus) worldwide.

Operator could be a way to push retailers to the channel-less environment that consumers are expecting. The startup appears to be an on-demand personal assistant of sorts, taking orders from fairly general expressions of desire via mobile message. Still, details are scant, and it’s hard to know how retailers will be able to fully integrate into such a setup or how consumers would respond.