Uber Technologies has reduced 10% of roles within its customer service operations, becoming one of the latest technology companies to directly attribute workforce reductions to artificial intelligence as businesses increasingly automate operations.
The company confirmed the job cuts within its community operations team. According to sources, an Uber spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the company is working “to simplify operations, strengthen in-person collaboration, and continue to embrace AI.”
As part of the restructuring, employees in the affected team who were previously working remotely have also been directed to relocate to one of Uber’s hub offices in accordance with the company’s return-to-office policy, the spokesperson added.
The latest workforce reduction is significant because it is the first time Uber has explicitly linked layoffs to productivity improvements enabled by AI. It also marks the company’s second round of job cuts in less than two months as it continues efforts to streamline its organisational structure.
“Our organization has become too complex and siloed,” Megha Yethadka, Uber’s vice president of global community operations, said in a memo to employees.
The executive added that the department “has made some strides” in using AI; she said, “but to unlock this potential, we need an effective organization to layer AI on. We cannot scale frontier technology on top of fragmented processes.”
The announcement follows another restructuring initiative in June, when Uber reduced its people division by 23%. That exercise affected fewer than 1% of the company’s approximately 34,000 global employees after a new president assumed leadership of the division. Uber has not disclosed the size of its customer service operations.
Earlier in May, the company had already indicated that it planned to slow hiring as its internal adoption of AI expanded. Despite that approach, Uber continues to recruit talent, with more than 500 vacancies currently listed on its careers website, including engineering positions supporting its growing robotaxi partnerships.
Uber’s latest decision reflects a broader trend across the technology sector, where companies are increasingly identifying artificial intelligence as a major factor driving organisational restructuring and workforce optimisation rather than weaker demand or slowing business performance.
As AI adoption accelerates across the industry, companies are continuing to reassess workforce requirements while investing in roles that support future technology initiatives, highlighting the changing balance between automation and talent deployment.
