Uber trims 10% of customer service staff for AI integration

Uber has eliminated 10 percent of its customer service workforce, marking the first time the ride-hailing company has directly attributed layoffs to its push for greater artificial intelligence integration. The cuts, announced on July 22, 2026, targeted the community operations team and were accompanied by a mandate for affected remote employees to relocate to centralized hub offices.

Company executives cited a need to simplify operations and strengthen in-person collaboration as key motivators. In an internal memo, Megha Yethatika, Uber's vice president of global community operations, stated the organization had become too complex and siloed. She acknowledged progress in using AI but said a cleaner operational foundation was required to fully leverage the technology. "We cannot scale frontier technology on top of fragmented processes," Yethatika wrote.

An Uber spokesperson said the decision is part of building a more connected and operationally excellent organization. The company has been expanding its use of AI tools to handle routine customer queries, with CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently noting that approximately 10 percent of company code is now written by AI agents. Uber...