From Business Insider · Alex Bitter · · 2m
Uber's AI takeover sparks layoff questions
Recently fired Uber employees say the company deployed AI across customer service, internal chat, and their daily work, raising questions about whether automation drove the cuts.
In brief
Recently fired Uber employees say the company deployed AI across customer service, internal chat, and their daily work, raising questions about whether automation drove the cuts. Uber is rapidly expanding AI use across customer service and internal operations, while laid-off staff question whether productivity gains…
Uber's AI is everywhere now
The ride-hailing company uses AI to answer employee questions in Slack, write customer service responses, and handle internal documentation queries. Six recently laid-off workers described widespread AI integration across their jobs.
One tool cut work to one-fifth
A laid-off employee said an AI tool reduced their job time from full workload to just 20 percent of what it used to take. They called AI "the dynamite under the bridge" for many workers worried about their roles.
“AI definitely feels like the dynamite under the bridge for a lot of us”
Genie answers questions in Slack
Uber's internal AI chatbot called Genie provides answers to employee questions using the company's own documentation. Workers said it replaced the guidance they used to get from managers.
“But it was usually AI replying to us about any questions we had”
Customer service agents used Glean
A customer service employee said they used Glean, an AI tool trained on internal documents, to respond to driver and passenger help requests. They often copied answers directly into chats when the knowledge base wasn't working.
“It wasn't what we were supposed to use, but it was a tool available to use when our knowledge base wasn't working”
Mixed messages on AI use
Some managers pushed employees to use ChatGPT and Gemini for client meetings, while others warned against using AI to do work. One former GenAI team member said leadership seemed conflicted about paying people who rely on AI.
“I think they're struggling with why they are paying these people if they're just using ChatGPT”
CEO didn't mention AI in layoff memo
Dara Khosrowshahi said the 3,300 job cuts aimed to eliminate management layers and reduce micro-teams. He later cited productivity gains from AI as a benefit of the restructuring, but never directly linked AI to the layoffs.
Company cut AI spending mid-year
Uber reduced or cut credits to Claude, an AI service, in the first half of the year. Executives said they hadn't seen productivity gains matching what they spent on AI tools.
The key point
Uber is rapidly expanding AI use across customer service and internal operations, while laid-off staff question whether productivity gains from automation motivated recent job cuts the company hasn't explicitly linked to AI.
