Uber enters hotel business with AI-powered platform
▼ Summary
– Uber customers in the U.S. can now book over 700,000 hotels through the app via a partnership with Expedia Group, with Vrbo vacation rentals added later.
– Uber One members receive 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in Uber Credits on all hotel bookings.
– New features were developed in months using agentic AI tools like Cursor, cutting development time from over a year to about six months.
– Uber launched “travel mode” with tourist guides and an Uber Eats “room service” hub for commonly forgotten items, with future dining recommendations and OpenTable booking.
– A feature called “Eats for the Way” lets Uber Black riders order a drink or snack to be in the vehicle upon arrival.
Uber customers across the United States can now book hotel rooms directly inside the ride-hailing app, marking a significant expansion of the company’s ecosystem. The feature was unveiled Wednesday during Uber’s annual Go-Get event in New York City, a product-focused showcase that signaled the company’s ambition to embed itself into every aspect of its users’ travel experiences.
At launch, Uber is partnering with Expedia Group, the travel giant formerly led by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi for 12 years, to offer access to more than 700,000 hotels worldwide. Vacation rental inventory from Vrbo, a startup under the Expedia umbrella, will be added later this year, Uber confirmed.
To sweeten the deal for subscribers, Uber One members will receive 20% discounts on a rotating selection of 10,000 hotels when booked through the app. They will also earn 10% back in Uber Credits on all hotel bookings.
“We’re no longer just an app for rides, or even two apps, or [a] family of apps for both rides and eats,” Khosrowshahi said during the event. “Uber is now an app for everything, where you can go, you can get and now you can travel.”
The hotel booking feature is just one of several new products that went from concept to launch in months, thanks to the adoption of agentic AI tools like Cursor, according to Uber chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga. He told TechCrunch that the company has experienced a “fundamental reset” in how software is built since late last year.
“What we have seen the last few months is a fundamental reset, a new way of building software,” Naga said. He noted that a feature like hotel bookings would previously have required at least a year for development, testing, and debugging. That timeline has been cut in half, and he expects further acceleration as more engineers adopt agentic AI workflows.
“Our problems generally at Uber, it’s not the problem of not having ideas; there’s so many things we want to build,” Naga said. “It’s just always the problem of, we don’t have enough time or resourcing to build these things.”
Uber also introduced travel mode, a feature that provides users with a guide covering tourist hotspots, local favorites, and other helpful information tailored to their destination. The travel mode extends to Uber Eats through a new “room service” hub that lists commonly forgotten items. This hub will eventually include curated dining recommendations and the ability to book a table via OpenTable.
Another new feature, “Eats for the Way,” lets customers who have reserved an Uber Black also order a drink or snack that will be waiting in the vehicle when it arrives.
(Source: TechCrunch)
