Uber saw just four rides booked by an AI agent out of 320 million trips and meals

Halloween week was Uber's busiest of October. In seven days, the platform handled about 320 million rides and food orders. How many of those rides were booked by an AI agent, the assistants that can act on a user's behalf? Four.

The figure comes from Uber, which gave it on Wednesday, November 4, while presenting its third-quarter results to analysts, TechCrunch reports. For delivery, chief financial officer Balaji Krishnamurthy counted 500 Uber Eats orders placed by an agent over the same week. Set against 320 million rides and orders, that is a drop in the ocean. "It's very, very early, and the adoption we're seeing so far is very limited," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged (translated from the English).

Why hand an AI a task that takes 50 seconds?

Uber's chief executive himself offered part of an explanation. Booking a ride in the app takes 50 seconds on average, and reordering a dish already ordered takes 90 seconds. In other words, TechCrunch notes, the agent does not necessarily save the user any time. For an assistant to be worth it, the task has to be long or tedious. Ordering a car is not.

Uber is not an isolated case. The previous week, DoorDash, its food delivery rival, said it had received only a few hundred orders from AI agents, and most of its customers still go through its app.

Uber is keeping the door open anyway

Management is not giving up. "We hope there will be more adoption," Dara Khosrowshahi added. He sees agents as another way to access the platform and expects them to grow demand overall. According to him, "every AI systems company is talking to us." He counts about eight major assistants on the market and expects to see more than ten.

Meanwhile, software makers keep multiplying assistants that can buy. Meta says many users of its Muse assistant use it to shop. The app topped the US App Store in October and claims more than 10 million users. Anthropic unveiled Claude Duet, an agent that can pay and sign after your approval. Other players are pulling back: JPMorgan bars outside AI assistants from making transfers on its customers' accounts.

What to take away if you sell online

Uber's figures do not prove that AI agents will never have a commercial use. They show that today, almost no one delegates a simple, quick purchase in a well-designed app. Before investing in an "agent channel," it is better to measure how long your customers already take to order. Look also at where they lose patience: endless forms, tedious comparisons, repetitive procedures. That is where an agent has a chance of being useful.

Next test: the year-end holidays, the peak season for online commerce. At their next earnings reports, Uber and DoorDash will say whether agents have finally found their audience.