Uber revealed that personal AI agents generated very little usage during its busiest week in October, handling only four ride bookings during the week of Halloween. The transportation giant shared these statistics during its third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, noting that while Uber Eats saw slightly higher adoption, the overall volume remained negligible compared to traditional app orders. Chief financial officer Balaji Krishnamurthy reported that out of roughly 320 million trips and orders handled across the platform that week, only 500 Uber Eats orders were placed by an AI agent.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged the early and limited traction during the call with Wall Street analysts, noting that booking a ride through the official Uber app takes only 50 seconds while re-ordering favorite food takes 90 seconds. This streamlined efficiency indicates that current AI agents do not necessarily save users time. The tiny figures arrive amid widespread industry hype surrounding task-handling personal assistants from major technology firms and buzzy startups, mirroring similar low agentic transaction numbers reported recently by competitors like DoorDash.
Despite the current lack of consumer volume, Uber leadership remains optimistic about the future integration of autonomous tools on their platform. Khosrowshahi stated that the company views these technologies as an additional opportunity to generate ecosystem demand while noting ongoing discussions with numerous artificial intelligence system developers. This data matters because it highlights a stark contrast between high industry expectations for agentic workflows and current consumer adoption habits.