Uber CEO: Executives are Being Dishonest About AI

Executives throughout the tech industry are suggesting productivity will increase and new roles will be created following the acceleration of AI integration.

CEO Roland Busch says AI will assist and subsequently help shape Siemens’s manufacturing operations and Zoom’s Eric Yuan even suggests AI will be so optimised for regular tasks, it will lead to the creation of a 3-day work week.

In contrast, during a recent interview on The Diary of a CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, was asked about the disconnect between what tech leaders say publicly about AI and what they say in private.

Dara acknowledges the dissonance and says he’s been present to several conversations between executives about the “sheer amount of disruption" they expect from AI, before seeing those same leaders appear on news channels like CNBC and tell audiences not to expect any problems with the technology.

“I understand the incentive,” Dara says, noting that being too transparent about job displacement concerns could ward off potential investors and fundraising opportunities.

He estimates that AI could replace the work of what 70 to 80% of humans are capable of, with intellectual jobs falling within 10 years and physical roles like driving, logistics and robotics within 15 to 20.

With 9.5 million drivers and couriers on the Uber platform, Dara doesn’t shy away from the idea that AI could affect his own workforce, suggesting that the majority of trips could be fulfilled by autonomous vehicles.

When asked what will happen to those 9.5 million drivers in a theoretical era of mass autonomous driving, Dara replied: “I don’t know.”

AI fundamentally changing company operations

As industry concern around AI-driven layoffs increases, other CEOs are already enacting measures to capitalise on saving costs with automation.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut roughly 4,000 jobs in February — nearly 40% of his company's workforce — in one of the largest AI-attributed layoffs in tech history.

Speaking on this decision to cut roles, in a post on X Jack said AI tools have “fundamentally changed what it means to build and run a company. And that’s rapidly accelerating”.

Similarly, companies like Crypto.com, eBay and Pinterest have pointed to AI in recent workforce layoff announcements.

In 2025, Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that companies cited AI in 55,000 job cuts, 12 times the figure just two years prior.

12,000 AI-linked job cuts have already been announced in 2026, with Goldman Sachs Research putting the baseline displacement estimate at 6 to 7% of the entire US workforce if AI is widely adopted.

In contrast, some economists are sceptical, with firms like Oxford Economics suggesting that certain companies are using AI as cover rather than admitting to tariff impacts, overhiring during the COVID-19 pandemic or profit maximising.

Replacing humans with AI agents

While the company is yet to implement autonomous driving as a ride feature, Uber has already begun its integration of AI technologies within company operations.

90% of Uber’s engineers now use AI tools daily, with 30% of users rewriting entire systems from scratch using AI agents.

Customer service has also been revised to work around agentic AI, with the company replacing rigid, rule-based policies with systems that can make personalised decisions in real time.

Additionally, employees have built an AI clone of Dara himself, naming it Dara AI and utilising the agent to rehearse presentations before performing them to the actual CEO.

On the same podcast, Dara was asked if Uber’s team might show Dara AI to the board instead of him. Amused, Dara responded that when AI models can learn in real time, “that is the point at which I'm going to think that, yeah, we are all replaceable.”