Uber enables outstanding on-demand experiences with AI

Our new Executive Function series features perspectives from leaders driving transformation through AI.

Uber⁠(opens in a new window) is a global mobility and delivery platform powering tens of millions of on-demand trips per day. We spoke with Uber’s Jai Malkani, Global Head of Product, Customer Obsession, about using AI in areas like empathetic and efficient customer support interactions, intelligent automation, and augmenting human agent capabilities.

Uber facilitates billions of rides and deliveries for various marketplace participants, such as riders, drivers, Uber Eats customers, merchants, and businesses. AI is crucial to personalizing and optimizing these interactions. It helps us solve complex challenges unique to Uber as we operate at the intersection of the digital and physical worlds.

Our AI models give nuanced insight into user needs, reduce friction in the Uber app, and create adaptive services that evolve in real time. As a result, we’re better able to operate at unprecedented scale with accuracy, reliability, and efficiency. We are all living in incredibly exciting times. With the advent of generative AI, we’re extending our capabilities in ways we’re just beginning to explore.

Uber’s marketplace is incredibly complex. It spans multiple segments: from our two-sided mobility platform connecting riders and drivers, to Uber Eats’ three-way interaction between eaters, couriers, and restaurants, to our grocery service which coordinates between consumers, couriers, shoppers, and merchants.

We tailor our AI strategy for each segment: 

• Rides: Fare adjustments need to be made when routes change due to traffic or tolls. We use AI to interpret what happened, provide equitable resolutions, and communicate transparently to riders and drivers.
• Uber Eats: If a wrong food item is delivered, AI helps analyze photos, track an item’s lifecycle, and determine where the error occurred. If necessary, we can process refunds or reorders more efficiently.
• Grocery: In grocery delivery, our AI assists with real-time inventory challenges by facilitating real-time communication between consumers and shoppers, suggesting optimal recourse based on customer preferences leading to increased satisfaction and overall efficiencies.

AI enables hyper-personalization by anticipating customer needs based on preferences, past transactions on the platform, and contextual scenarios. For example, we can use AI to personalize interactions for drivers who need to update documents before their expiry date by informing them of requirements based on their region, account, and specific requirements for the type of rides or delivery trips they take. This capability allows us to offer near-instantaneous, intelligent experiences across multiple channels, whether it’s chat, voice, or in-app interactions. The goal is to create seamless, personalized, and intuitive experiences that delight our customers.

AI is an intelligent co-pilot for our workforce, enhancing productivity across developers, operations, customer service agents, and many other teams. For example, in customer support, AI provides conversational summaries, automates investigations, provides empathetic next-best responses, and translates complex policies into actionable routines for resolutions. This allows our teams to focus on higher-value interactions, improving both customer outcomes and operational efficiency.

We use a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics, including customer experience scores, resolution speed, automation rates, and productivity gains. For example, we measure the quality of LLM responses and conduct controlled experiments to compare AI-augmented workflows with traditional ones. Metrics like user engagement, and incremental gross bookings, across geographic segments help us assess both customer satisfaction and business impact.

By continuously optimizing these metrics, we ensure that our AI investments deliver tangible benefits for our customers and the business.

It starts with fostering an AI-driven culture and mindset. The time to debate whether to adopt AI is over. Businesses must embrace AI to stay competitive and meet evolving customer expectations.

At Uber, we don’t just consume AI technology, we actively innovate on it. We push the boundaries by reimagining customer experiences, enhancing decision-making, and driving operational efficiency. My advice is to become intimately familiar with the power and capabilities at your disposal, go after high-value use cases, secure executive sponsorship, demonstrate clear business value, and integrate AI as a core component of your strategy. AI is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have for survival and growth.

AI will continue to transform the on-demand economy especially as autonomous vehicles and robotic delivery systems become increasingly popular. It’s also creating new earning opportunities in areas like data annotation and sentiment analysis. 

In the coming years, AI will unlock unprecedented efficiency, growth, and innovation, reshaping how businesses, workers, and consumers interact within the marketplace. It’s an exciting future, and we’re proud to be at the forefront.

I look forward to continuing our work with OpenAI and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible together.