Uber announced the launch of a hotel-booking, AI voice assistant, among other new features, on Wednesday, April 29th, during its annual Go-Get event in New York City. The new service comes as a partnership with Expedia Group, expanding the capabilities of both platforms to offer a more complete travel experience for users.
The new features will be initially deployed in the U.S. Uber app, and it will enable users to book in more than 700,000 hotels worldwide, while offering 20% discounts on a rolling list of 10,000 hotels when booked through the app, and 10% back in Uber Credits in all bookings for members of their Uber One program.
Uber also announced the deployment of an AI-powered Voice Booking Assistant to book hands-free rides.
Praveen Nepalli Naga, CTO of Uber, explained how the new features would have taken a whole year to bring to market, including the process of development, testing, debugging and launching, while now with the adoption of Agentic AI the timeframe was reduced by half and is expected to move workflows and processes even faster.
Within the Uber app, once the user enters the destination, they can view hotels in a map list or search with personalized filters. The prices will be displayed including taxes, fees and applied discounts, as well as the Uber Credits they can earn with the booking within 24 hours after the hotel check-in, intended to be spent in the destination city.
The booking process is the same as the traditional ride, users will pay and receive a confirmation email to the address linked to the account.
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, explained how Uber is evolving into an app for everything by “helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place.”
The new Uber features are meant to bring a solution to the current cognitive overload and the decision paralysis for excessive apps and options, stating that:
“At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
To expand this new platform expansion strategy, Uber also updated the in-app experiences for Uber and Uber Eats. Among the new features are:
- Travel Mode: Available for Uber and Uber Eats, this option recommends local and touristic restaurants and places for users, and even a “room service” option to deliver to the user’s door forgetting items or delivery.
- Uber One International: From June 1, Uber One members will get international benefits to earn credits on rides, ensure $0 delivery fees abroad and the possibility to use the rewards in their return to home ride.
- Shop for Me: Users can now request items from any store, with or without the platform, with the same prices as in-store.
- Eats for the Way: Users that reserve Uber Black or Uber Black SUV will be enabled to add a coffee, tea or little snack to have on the ride, handled by the driver in the pick up moment.
- One Search: This feature enables the users to look for something in the search bar, and the app will suggest from the associated places and items across the Uber app for a complete experience.
This new partnership with Expedia Group will allow customers from both platforms to use the service from the other one, focusing on delivering a complete simple travel experience for users. Uber rides will be integrated directly in the Expedia app by the beginning of June and vacation rentals from Vrbo are expected to be added later this year.
