"If an AI agent takes over searching, booking, and paying for humans, simple middleman platforms will inevitably collapse."
I recently came across a report published by Citrini Research this past February titled the "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis." This collapse is not a coincidence. It is the natural order of things as the paradigm of our era shifts.
Think about it. If AI automatically picks what fits your needs and completes the payment without you manually searching and comparing, you gain unprecedented convenience and save a massive amount of time. From a company's perspective, the need to surrender high commissions to middleman platforms simply disappears.
Just last year, I was actively using Adobe. Now? I use Claude. Claude has rapidly mastered coding, spreadsheets, and even design work. If you are chasing efficiency, it is the only logical choice. The stock price collapse of companies like Adobe was an entirely predictable outcome. Things have gotten so bad that a new term has been coined: "SaaSpocalypse." As that word suggests, the end of Software as a Service is rapidly approaching.
The Insurmountable Wall in the AI Era
While some companies are being swallowed whole by AI, a select few are actively building barriers that even AI would struggle to cross. Today I want to focus on one of them: Uber Technologies.
Uber seemed to lose its footing the moment Tesla's Robotaxi entered the picture. After handing off its autonomous driving division to Aurora in 2020, the company was hammered by short sellers pointing to its lack of proprietary technology.
But most investors are missing the real story. Uber is a massive enterprise that has kept a global taxi business running while navigating the impossibly complex regulations of dozens of countries. It is such a deeply data-driven operation that even Waymo relies on Uber's network and know-how when entering new markets.
When you look at upcoming global events like this year's World Cup or the 2028 LA Olympics, very few mobility companies can handle that scale and pass rigorous verification processes. Uber has quietly accumulated physical road data across the globe, built on years of fleet movement records. They have strategically repositioned to collect precise autonomous driving training data and city-by-city operational intelligence.
Redefining Human Time and Habits
Having reorganized its mobility business, Uber is now tackling the next challenge: the AI threat. Their answer is to completely redefine how people spend their time and money.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made a bold declaration. Uber's ultimate goal is no longer just movement and mobility. It is capturing the smartphone habits of its users. The time they spend on their phones.
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| Managing the entire travel experience within a single Uber interface |
Think about planning a trip. Normally you book a flight through an airline, secure accommodation through a hotel app or Airbnb, and figure out local transportation after you land. Dara's recent presentation makes Uber's strategy for this year crystal clear. What struck me most was a staged advertisement showing a user booking a hotel directly inside the Uber app and managing everything from the journey to the room in one seamless flow.
Uber has partnered with Expedia, allowing users to search and book hotels worldwide without ever leaving the app. You can instantly order items or have coffee delivered to your moving vehicle. The overarching strategy is to lock every repetitive purchase that happens during a trip inside the Uber ecosystem. This is the direct product of the 12 years Dara spent leading Expedia's turnaround.
"By establishing this framework, even if a user eventually turns to an AI app, Uber preempts the ultimate transaction gateway across every step: booking, riding, staying, and eating."
Preempting the Gateway
If you command ChatGPT, this entire process will eventually happen in a single breath. But the reality is that every step of this process is nearly impossible without real-world partners.
You need Expedia's inventory of 700,000 hotels. You need the regulatory permits and ride-booking infrastructure built across hundreds of cities. You need financial partners like Stripe to complete the actual transaction. Uber's strategy is to monopolize these connection points entirely. They are responding to the coming threat of AI by proactively integrating these gateways and deepening their network data.
The membership program is the lure that keeps consumers from leaving the app. Uber deliberately abandoned the traditional rigid loyalty model. Instead, it is built around usability, price, and intuitive rewards.
Take Uber One, which gives you 10% back on payments. Book a hotel for $600 and you instantly get $60 back. You then use that $60 to call an Uber at your destination or order room service through Uber Eats. Without even realizing it, the user has completed 5 to 7 transactions inside the Uber app. This payment cycle aggressively accelerates cash flow. The movement patterns, payment data, and behavioral metrics are quietly generating massive profitability for Uber.
The Illusion of "Lacking AI"
The Uber AI Solutions division, launched last June, builds and sells intelligence products using over 100 local languages and a network of nearly 9 million drivers and couriers. The machine learning platform they developed in-house over the past decade has been restructured into a hub capable of real-time processing for Large Language Models, and they have officially begun selling that raw data to external AI companies.
Uber's recent financial performance is a textbook example of economies of scale at work. Stable, massive profits without needing to endlessly pour in new investment.
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| The silent engine driving faster growth than Uber's core mobility business |
The last-mile delivery war, competing for the closest proximity to consumers, restaurants, and grocery stores, is another critical dimension. We instinctively think of Uber as ride-hailing. Yet in the fourth quarter of last year, Uber Eats generated $25.4 billion in gross bookings, reaching 92% of the mobility segment's volume. Even more striking: while mobility operating profit grew 25% year-over-year, delivery exploded by 40%. Uber Eats is actually pulling in money faster than their core business.
Chronic Risks and the Tesla Threat
To protect these profits, Uber must address its chronic vulnerabilities. The most significant danger is not technology. It is regulation and labor. They are in constant legal battles with their 8.8 million contract drivers and delivery workers. As AI-based autonomous vehicles approach full-scale deployment, signs of conflict over deteriorating driver income are surfacing again.
And then there is the topic Uber always tries to sidestep: Tesla's Cybercab.
"If Tesla successfully deploys its own robotaxi network at a low enough cost, Uber's platform commission structure will inevitably face crushing pressure."
The risk that Tesla's pricing and fiercely independent ecosystem could degrade mobility market profitability is very real.
Under Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber Technologies has become a fundamentally different company. Yet they now stand before another massive wave called autonomous driving and AI, forced to break through once more.
The platform that survives the AI era will not simply be an app installed on millions of phones. It will be an app that processes every request faster and more seamlessly than AI itself, without the user even needing to open it. A company with unmatched regulatory know-how, the ability to connect cars, drivers, delivery, and customer service, while integrating all travel and consumer behavior into AI.
That company is Uber.
Five years from now, will Uber Technologies still exist as the company we know that calls cars and delivers food? Or will it hand its seat entirely to an AI agent, surviving only as a backend operating layer? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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