Uber cuts 10% of customer-service jobs and, for the first time, blames AI

Uber has trimmed its customer-service ranks and pointed at AI. The company cut 10% of jobs in its community operations team on Wednesday. It is part of a wider push to “simplify operations, strengthen in-person collaboration, and continue to embrace AI,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg by email.

It is a first for Uber. The company has cut staff before. But this is the first time it has tied layoffs directly to an AI efficiency drive, Bloomberg reported. It is also the second round of cuts in under two months.

“Our organisation has become too complex and siloed,” Megha Yethadka, Uber’s vice-president of global community operations, wrote in an internal memo. Bloomberg obtained it. The team “has made some strides” with AI, she said. “But to unlock this potential, we need an effective organisation to layer AI on. We cannot scale frontier technology on top of fragmented processes.”

A familiar refrain

Uber joins a growing list. In recent months, firms from payments company Block to Oracle have named AI as a reason for job cuts. Monday.com trimmed a fifth of its staff under an “AI growth” banner. Even big banks have made the same case.

The pattern is not universal. Some leaders argue AI is changing jobs, not destroying them. Others warn that “AI efficiency” can be a tidy label for ordinary cost-cutting. Uber does not disclose the size of its customer-service arm, so the human total stays unclear.

Back to the office, too

The cuts came with a second demand. Remote workers on the team must relocate to a hub office, in line with Uber’s return-to-office rule. The reductions follow a June cut of 23% of Uber’s “people” division, which the company said was under 1% of its 34,000 staff.

Slower hiring, but not everywhere

Uber flagged the shift in May, when it said AI would slow its hiring. Even so, it is still recruiting for more than 500 roles. Some are engineers to support its robotaxi partnerships. Shares barely moved after hours.

The message under the memo is plain. Uber wants a leaner team it can wire AI into, not the sprawling one it has. Whether that lifts service or just trims payroll is the test the next few quarters will set.