Uber is in the hotel business now, thanks in part to AI

Uber customers in the United States can now book hotels directly through the app, one of several new features announced Wednesday that pushes far beyond the company’s original ride-hailing purpose and even deeper into its users’ lives. Uber announced the new hotel booking feature on Wednesday during its product-heavy annual Go-Get event in New York City. At launch, Uber customers will have access to more than 700,000 hotels worldwide through a partnership with Expedia Group, the travel company that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi led for 12 years. Uber said vacation rental inventory from startup Vrbo will be added to the app later this year. Image Credits: Uber And in a pitch to sell more customers on its Uber One subscription, Uber said members will get 20% discounts off of a rolling list of 10,000 hotels when booked through the app. Members will also receive 10% back in Uber Credits on all bookings. “We’re no longer just an app for rides, or even two apps, or [a] family of apps for both rides and eats,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said during the company’s event. “Uber is now an app for everything, where you can go, you can get and now you can travel,” he said. The hotel bookings, new AI-powered voice bookings feature, and a widespread search tool are among a handful of new products unveiled Wednesday that went from idea to launching in the app within months thanks to agentic AI tools like Cursor, Uber chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga told TechCrunch. …