Uber says AI agents booked just four rides and 500 food orders during Halloween week

AI assistants have barely entered Uber’s checkout flow. During Halloween week, they booked only four rides and placed 500 Uber Eats orders, the company disclosed on its November 4 earnings call. Yet executives are treating agents as a potential source of customers, not a channel to close off, according to TechCrunch.

A small channel against a huge transaction count

Chief financial officer Balaji Krishnamurthy said Uber and Uber Eats handled about 320 million trips and orders combined that week. It was Uber’s busiest week in October. The total covers both businesses together, rather than food delivery alone.

The agents at issue are assistants that carry out tasks on users’ behalf, such as ordering food, rather than simply answering questions. Uber’s figures count transactions originating with those tools.

The app is the immediate competitor

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s argument starts with how little work the existing app requires. He said booking a ride takes an average of 50 seconds. For customers reordering a meal through Uber Eats, he put the median time at 90 seconds. These are company-supplied timings, not a head-to-head test against an agent.

Khosrowshahi also pointed to Uber’s data as a reason customers would continue coming directly to its services. His position is that the app already removes much of the effort an outside assistant might otherwise handle.

Building its own, while welcoming outsiders

Uber is developing its own AI agents to speed up ordering, Nation’s Restaurant News reported. For outside assistants, Khosrowshahi described an opportunity to reach Uber’s platform and predicted a net positive effect on demand.

Khosrowshahi said every AI system company was talking to Uber. He counted around eight major assistants in the market and expected that number to exceed 10 over time. Despite the small transaction counts, he said he hoped agents would gain more traction.