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.
Speaking during Uber’s third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Khosrowshahi said the company’s platform is no longer just a marketplace for rides or food orders.
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“Another way of looking at our platform is that we’re a platform for work,” he said. “Besides transportation, we can empower other kinds of work as well.”
Last month, Uber launched a pilot program in the United States allowing users to complete short-term gigs that involve training AI systems. The initiative, called Digital Tasks, was first tested in India and involves labeling video footage, annotating images, or refining AI voice responses. The company said such tasks are designed to be simple enough for existing Uber drivers or couriers to perform using the same app they use for rides or deliveries.
Khosrowshahi described the effort as a “natural extension” of Uber’s core business. “Digital Tasks represent a potential answer for drivers who might be displaced by robotaxis in the future,” he said, adding that the initiative could help mitigate job losses as automation becomes more prevalent in the transport industry.
Uber, alongside rivals like Waymo and Tesla, has invested heavily in autonomous vehicle research, which many analysts believe could eventually reduce the need for human drivers. That looming shift has prompted Khosrowshahi to position Uber as a bridge between today’s gig economy and the AI-driven workforce of tomorrow.
Some of Uber’s digital tasks, however, require more advanced skills than driving or delivery. “Some of the roles require PhDs, for example, in physics, in order to get the gig done,” Khosrowshahi said. “The pay for such gigs is higher than for Uber drivers.”
The move is seen as part of Uber’s broader plan to secure relevance in a rapidly changing labor market dominated by AI and automation. Tech firms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Scale AI have long offered similar micro-tasking opportunities to train AI systems, but Uber’s vast user base could give it a unique advantage in scale and accessibility.
The AI training market has grown substantially in recent years, with global demand for data labeling projected to exceed $8 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. For Uber, this creates a new revenue stream while leveraging its existing platform and logistics network to connect workers with digital opportunities.
Khosrowshahi emphasized that the digital task business is still in its infancy but could grow to become a major revenue driver, just as Uber Eats evolved from an experimental feature into a global delivery powerhouse.
“We think this can ultimately be another profitable line of business for us,” he said. “We’re already landing a ton of customers that need people to train AI for them.”
Given the growing competition and potential threat posed by robotaxi rollouts to its core ride-hailing business, Uber’s pivot into AI-related work is seen as a strategic repositioning — especially as the future of the tech economy seems to be tied to AI. Although it’s a gamble that its pay remains uncertain, Uber appears intent on ensuring it has a place in the future of work — even if that future is powered by the same technology that could one day replace many of its drivers.