Technology and Scienceupdated 49m ago2 min read
Uber Says AI Agents Booked Just Four Rides During Halloween Week
6outlets comparedWhere the coverage agrees
3 Other1 Local Western1 Western Alternative1 Western MainstreamThis article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Only four AI-agent-booked rides occurred during Halloween week. AI agents handled about 500 Uber Eats orders during Halloween week.
Save coverage image
6 outlets told this the same way.
Halloween Week Numbers
Uber told investors that AI agents booked just four rides during its busiest week in October, the week of Halloween, while Uber Eats logged around 500 orders through such agents. Uber’s CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call that Uber handled roughly 320 million trips and orders across its ride-hailing and Uber Eats delivery businesses during Halloween week.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi framed the early results as “very, very early and very limited traction that we are seeing so far,” while he said he hoped for more traction. Uber also said booking a ride in the Uber app takes about 50 seconds on average, and reordering a favorite meal takes roughly 90 seconds, leaving little obvious time savings for an agent to deliver.
Speed, Assistants, Talks
Dara Khosrowshahi told analysts that the in-app speed of Uber’s own flows reduces the appeal of third-party agents, saying booking a ride takes 50 seconds and reordering a favorite dish takes 90 seconds. Khosrowshahi also estimated that there are about eight major AI assistants on the market today and expects that number to exceed 10 in the future.
Uber said it is talking with many agent providers and expects outside assistants to become another way to reach its platform, even while it bets that its own apps remain the preferred route. TechCrunch reported that Khosrowshahi said “We think that is another opportunity to reach our platform,” and he added “We think it will be a net positive in terms of demand on the ecosystem.”
What Comes Next
Uber’s disclosure landed as the consumer agent market expanded, with Meta’s Muse climbing to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store and passing 10 million users, and with Instinct raising its latest round at a $10 billion valuation.
Uber said it intends to work with outside AI providers even while betting that its own apps remain the preferred route, and it also said it wants to avoid dependence on any single player.
Uber’s own AI efforts include a Cart Assistant for Uber Eats introduced earlier this year, and Uber said it is also building Ask Eats as a voice-enabled assistant for specific requests.
Unite.AI said Uber’s Cart Assistant has customers using it for more complex grocery shopping and baskets roughly twice the size of an average Grocery & Retail order, while it described Ask Eats beta as designed for requests like finding a healthy lunch under $15 that can arrive within 20 minutes.