Good People, let us dissect the imminent future. Uber, the global ride-hailing leviathan, is seeing the writing on the wall. They understand the profound disruptive enzyme that self-driving technology represents, a force ready to utterly disintermediate their core service model. Why? Because the very function they aggregate, the driver, is destined for obsolescence.
I project that the arrival of full autonomy is not a distant aspiration but a fast-approaching business equilibrium. By 2028, I expect to see advanced, fully driverless car capabilities scaling rapidly across the Chinese tech ecosystem, and by 2030, the United States market will embrace this new paradigm at full scale. Simply put, autonomous capability will no longer be an add-on; it will be a non-negotiable, embedded core component of every vehicle manufactured. When this happens, the aggregated network effect, Uber’s historical competitive moat built on matching human drivers to human riders, will collapse at scale.
To survive this seismic shift, Uber is not standing still; it is charting a bold, new trajectory. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has declared a strategic transformation: Uber is evolving far beyond mere rides and deliveries into a global “platform for work.” This is their defense mechanism. They are now focused on connecting their millions of users with digital tasks, including jobs training and the burgeoning demands of the Artificial Intelligence ecosystem, a strategic pivot designed to diversify income and remain viable in the age of automation.
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Uber Technologies is broadening its scope far beyond rides and deliveries, with CEO Dara Khosrowshahi declaring that the company is transforming into a global “platform for work.”
The company’s newest ambition is to connect its millions of app users with digital tasks — including jobs training, and artificial intelligence — as part of a strategic shift toward diversifying income opportunities in an era of automation.
This is the crux, Good People: Numerous established business models are marked for extinction as AI permeates the heart of global economies. From the learning-content models of platforms like Chegg to the aggregation models of Uber, the status quo is under existential threat.
Therefore, the critical question for every enterprise leader is this: What is your company’s AI Resilience Score? Are you proactively evaluating the viability of your business model against the relentless march of intelligent automation?
The most profound utility of AI is not its deployment as a mere operational tool for efficiency gains. No! AI’s true, transformative power lies in its capacity to re-engineer and fundamentally transform the business model itself. If AI does not force you to reimagine your value proposition and your economic structure, you are not deploying it right.
Uber is strategically planning for its post-driver future. You must do the same for your mission. Here at Tekedia Institute, we understand this principle intimately. We have noted that the sheer Supply of Knowledge is rapidly being disintermediated by Large Language Models and AI platforms. Anyone can now curate any basic lecture note. Consequently, our value has shifted. We are doing more live, interactive sessions because the value today resides not in the content itself, but in the contextualization, the filtering, and the interpretation of that knowledge, removing the friction that too much abundance creates.
I ask you again, leader: What is your business’ AI Resilience Score as disruption picks up across markets and geographies? Failure to plan is a plan to fail.
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