Kamal Ghorui
Uber is slowing its headcount growth to pivot more resources toward artificial intelligence (AI), according to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. During the company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings call, Khosrowshahi explained that the productivity gains offered by AI are significant enough that they justify a shift in spending from human hires to technology.“I think you should just look at AI as an accelerator. For us, for every company, it means that our investment in AI tools and infrastructure is increasing. That will be offset by slower headcount growth,” Khosrowshahi said.
Uber CEO says AI writing code and improving efficiency
Uber has integrated AI into its operations, from legal and marketing teams to its core software engineering. The CEO noted that these tools are not just assisting staff but are creating “employees with superpowers”.He revealed that roughly 10% of Uber’s code changes are now produced by autonomous AI agents, pointing out that while AI writes the code, human employees still review and test it before it is officially added to the company’s repository. According to Khosrowshahi, this has increased the number of code commits per engineer, allowing the company to move faster in building and maintaining its systems.“We are seeing it. Like, if we look at the number of code commits for engineer, it’s increasing. The number of lines per code is increasing. About 10% of our codes now is committed. That’s committed is built by agents, autonomous agents out there. Obviously, we check the code before it gets committed. I think you should just look at AI as an accelerator,” Khosrowshahi added.The pivot toward AI has been more aggressive than initially planned. CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy admitted that the company “underestimated” the potential impact of AI tools during its 2025 budgeting process. Khosrowshahi also said that the math of AI productivity is too compelling to ignore.“If every person at this company can increase their throughput by 20%, 30%, 50%, 100%, I think leading headcount growth and leaning in on AI investment is gonna be well worth it,” he noted, adding, “AI is helping our engineers and our employees across the company become more efficient to move faster across the board in almost every single step of building.”Uber has used the technology for years to handle complex tasks like pricing rides and matching drivers with passengers.
