The Pulse
Uber Says AI Agents Booked Four Rides During Halloween Week
Uber said AI agents placed only four ride orders during the week of Halloween, while 500 Uber Eats orders were placed by agents. The company reported around 320 million trips and orders across Uber and Uber Eats during that week.
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
Uber said AI agents placed only four ride orders during the week of Halloween. The company also handled only 500 Uber Eats orders placed by AI agents during that week. Uber chief financial officer Balaji Krishnamurthy told analysts the company handled around 320 million trips and orders across Uber and Uber Eats over the same period.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi described the uptake as “It is very, very early and very limited traction that we are seeing so far.” He added: “Listen, we hope that there will be more traction.” The figures show that, while AI agents had placed food orders through Uber Eats, their use remained small compared with the overall volume on the platform.
AI agents are beginning to place orders through Uber
The low numbers come amid growing interest in AI agents designed to carry out tasks for users, rather than only answer questions. A range of companies have introduced or are offering agents, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and SpaceXAI (Grok), alongside smaller startups.
Personal AI startups have also drawn attention and investment. Instinct, which was founded last year, raised its most recent funding round at a $10 billion valuation. Meta’s Muse app became the No. 1 app in Apple’s U.S. App Store last month and topped 10 million users, according to Meta’s own reporting. Meta said many users were using it to shop and transact with businesses.
Uber says booking in its app is already quick
Khosrowshahi pointed to the time customers take to complete tasks in Uber’s own apps. The average time to book a ride in the Uber app is 50 seconds, he said. He also cited 90 seconds to reorder a favorite food. Those short times help explain why an AI agent may not necessarily save customers time when booking a ride or placing a repeat food order.
Other public companies have also reported relatively few orders placed by AI agents. DoorDash said on its earnings call the previous week that it had received only a few hundred such orders so far, with most customers continuing to place orders through the DoorDash app.
Uber expects more AI assistants to reach its platform
Despite the small number of AI-driven transactions, Khosrowshahi said he sees an opportunity for agents to bring demand to Uber’s platform. “We think that is another opportunity to reach our platform. We think it will be a net positive in terms of demand on the ecosystem,” he said.
Khosrowshahi estimated that around eight major AI assistants were on the market and said he expected that number to grow to more than 10. “Every single AI system company is talking to us,” he said. The earnings-call figures offer an early measure of how often customers are using those systems to complete transactions with Uber, rather than ordering directly through its apps.