Key facts
- Uber is cutting 10% of its customer service jobs.
- The company is increasing investment in artificial intelligence.
- CEO Dara Khosrowshahi indicated that AI tools are boosting employee productivity.
- Uber is slowing its hiring pace to allocate more resources to AI.
- Approximately 10% of Uber's code modifications are now generated by AI agents.
- The People and Places division, responsible for HR and recruitment, saw job cuts.
Uber is reducing its customer service workforce by 10% as it significantly increases investment in artificial intelligence, according to reports. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated on the company's first-quarter earnings call that AI tools are enhancing employee productivity, leading to a slowdown in hiring.
Khosrowshahi indicated that approximately 10% of Uber's code changes are now produced by autonomous agents, with human employees still reviewing the code. He noted that AI has been used for years in areas like ride pricing and driver matching, but employees across various departments, including legal and marketing, are now using internal AI tools, which he described as giving "employees with superpowers."
The company is increasing its AI spending, partly funded by hiring fewer employees. CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy mentioned that Uber had underestimated the impact of AI tools when budgeting at the end of 2025, and CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga noted that the entire 2026 budget for Claude Code was spent in just four months.
Separately, Uber's People and Places division, which oversees human resources, recruitment, and culture, experienced job cuts on June 3. A company spokesperson stated these cuts were unrelated to AI, though reports highlight that nearly 95% of engineers use AI tools monthly and about 70% of committed code is AI-generated. Jill Hazelbaker, promoted to president and chief corporate affairs officer, cited organizational complexity and fragmentation as reasons for the restructuring within the People team.