Uber: AI Agents Booked Just Four Rides in Its Busiest October Week
Ride-hailing platform Uber says AI agents ordered only four rides in its busiest week of October, out of roughly 320 million trips and orders overall. On Uber Eats, food delivery, agents placed about 500 orders.
Uber, the US ride-hailing and delivery platform, has disclosed that artificial intelligence (AI) agents, which can carry out tasks on users' behalf, are still used very rarely. The company's figures for its busiest week in October, which included Halloween, suggest the technology has yet to win users' trust for hailing rides or ordering food.
During that week, AI agents booked just four Uber rides, while the total number of trips and orders on the platform reached about 320 million. Use was slightly higher on the Uber Eats food delivery service, where agents placed roughly 500 orders in the same period. That figure is also tiny and statistically insignificant compared with the overall order volume.
Little time saved
One possible reason is that doing these things manually is already quick. According to Uber's data, booking a ride takes about 50 seconds on average, while reordering a favourite meal in the Uber Eats app takes around a minute and a half. An AI agent therefore does not always offer a meaningful time saving or other convenience.
Cooperation continues
Uber has not given up on the approach, however. The company continues to work with AI developers OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, as well as other market players, to offer automated tools in its services.
