Limited Adoption of AI Agents for Food and Ride Orders

AI agents have not made significant headway in the realm of ordering food or booking rides. Despite forecasts of an AI-driven revolution in online orders, these tools have seen minimal uptake. Both Uber and DoorDash reported limited engagement with AI agents in their recent earnings calls.

During one of Uber’s busiest weeks, a mere four ride-hailing trips stemmed from AI agents. According to Balaji Krishnamurthy, Uber’s CFO, the company facilitated 320 million ride-hailing and delivery trips in the last week of October. However, only about 500 were ordered via AI agents, even during peak periods like Halloween.

“It is very, very early, and very limited traction that we have seen so far,” Krishnamurthy remarked.

DoorDash echoed this sentiment, with CEO Tony Xu mentioning “several hundred orders in total” from AI agents, a tiny fraction of their annual billions of deliveries.

Some users rely on AI agents for tasks such as buying plane tickets or groceries. They find these tools helpful for price monitoring. Nonetheless, fears of ordering mistakes or misuse of credit card details make many hesitant, as previously reported by Business Insider.

Despite the slow adoption, Uber and DoorDash continue to incorporate AI tools. DoorDash introduced a text-to-order feature, allowing users to circumvent their app altogether.