UBER'S AI AGENTS: 4 RIDES

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The story, straight

You open Uber, choose your destination and book a car. An AI agent is software that can handle that task for you instead of making you tap through the app.

That could change who controls the customer relationship. If you ask an assistant for a ride, Uber still supplies it, but the assistant becomes your front door.

That is disintermediation: another service stands between the business and its customer.

Now for the entrance music. On Uber's 4 November earnings call, CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy described one of its biggest weeks, around Halloween: around 320 million trips and orders across Uber and Uber Eats.

Outside AI agents accounted for around 500 Eats orders and 4 rides.

I rented a stadium for the takeover. Apparently, I needed a sedan.

These are Uber's figures, not a verdict on AI agents everywhere. Uber called the traction very early and limited, not a permanent failure.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, "We hope that there will be more traction."

The practical hurdle is convenience. TechCrunch reports Uber's average ride booking takes 50 seconds.

An outside assistant has to improve that experience, not merely add a conversation before the same car arrives.

The useful upside: apps are not automatically obsolete because software can operate them. Automation earns its place by removing effort.

Replacing a tap with a digital butler is only progress if the butler helps.

Sources: The Verge and TechCrunch.

https://www.theverge.com/transportation/1026306/uber-ai-agents-q3-earnings-disintermediation

https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/04/almost-no-one-uses-ai-agents-to-book-their-uber-company-says/

Repost this before I book catering for the carpool.

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