Almost no one uses AI agents to book their Uber, company says
AI-assisted digest, checked against the original source before publishing. How we work
On its Q3 earnings call, Uber disclosed that just four rides and 500 Uber Eats orders were booked by an AI agent during its busiest week of the quarter.
On its third-quarter earnings call Wednesday, Uber revealed how little personal AI agents are actually transacting on its platform: during the week of Halloween, its busiest week of the quarter, only four rides were booked through an AI agent.
The food delivery side fared marginally better. CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy told analysts that Uber and Uber Eats together handled roughly 320 million trips and orders during that week, yet just 500 Uber Eats orders came via an AI agent — a rounding error against total volume. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi characterized the results plainly: "It is very, very early and very limited traction that we are seeing so far," adding that the company hopes for more.
The disclosures land amid heavy hype for a wave of AI agents that perform tasks on users' behalf. Personal AI startup Instinct, founded last year, most recently raised funding at a $10 billion valuation, while Meta's Muse claimed the No. 1 spot in Apple's U.S. App Store last month with more than 10 million users, per Meta's own reporting — and Meta said many were using it to shop and transact with businesses. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and SpaceXAI (Grok) all market their own agents, alongside numerous smaller startups.
Uber is not an outlier. DoorDash said on its earnings call last week that it has received only a few hundred orders from AI agents so far, with most customers still ordering through its app. Khosrowshahi offered a blunt structural explanation: booking a ride in Uber's app averages about 50 seconds, and re-ordering a favorite meal takes about 90 seconds, leaving agents little obvious time to save.
Even so, Khosrowshahi struck a bullish tone on the channel itself, calling agents "another opportunity to reach our platform" and predicting they will be "a net positive in terms of demand on the ecosystem." He estimated the market currently has around eight major AI assistants and expects that figure to grow beyond 10 over time.
What remains open is whether agent-driven transactions scale once assistants multiply and users grow comfortable delegating purchases — or whether the 50-second app flow keeps undercutting the value proposition. Watch the next few earnings calls from Uber, DoorDash, and peers for whether agent order counts move from hundreds and single digits into meaningful share, and whether any platform starts reporting agent transactions as a distinct metric.
Key facts
- • Only 4 rides were booked via an AI agent during Uber's busiest October week.
- • 500 Uber Eats orders came from AI agents versus 320M total trips and orders.
- • DoorDash reported only a few hundred AI-agent orders so far.
- • Uber app ride booking averages 50 seconds; food re-order takes 90 seconds.
- • Instinct raised at a $10B valuation; Meta's Muse topped 10M users.
Why it matters
Builders building agent-commerce integrations shouldn't count on agent traffic as a demand channel anytime soon — friction-free incumbent apps are a harder competitor than expected. Expect platforms to keep agents at arm's length until volumes justify dedicated metrics, while agents may need to target higher-consideration, slower tasks rather than repeat orders.
Spotted an error? Send a correction.
Get the day's AI news in one email
The Daily Epoch · 60-second read · unsubscribe anytime
