Uber to also cap AI usage in its workforce
Uber is laying off employees in its people division in a bid to reduce complexity and build an "operationally excellent" organisation.
The redundancies will impact 23% of the department, affecting recruitment and human resources staff, CNBC reported.
No exact figures were provided to news outlets regarding the impacted roles, but a spokesperson told CNBC that the cuts impact "well under one per cent" of the ride-share giant's 34,000 employees.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in a memo that the changes were necessary "to maximise the effectiveness of the people team and the enormous potential" for Uber.
Jill Hazelbaker, newly promoted president and chief corporate affairs officer, also told affected employees that the layoffs were due to "complex and fragmented" segments in the company.
She also pointed out that there are "overlapping responsibilities, unclear ownership, and teams operating too far from the businesses and partners they support."
The layoffs will seek to build a "more connected, modern, operationally excellent organisation," according to Hazelbaker, as cited by CNBC.
Is it because of AI?
The company clarified that the cuts were not a result of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, unlike other organisations worldwide that are citing the technology for the cuts.
In fact, it was recently reported that the ride-share giant is limiting its employees' use of AI tools through usage caps.
Bloomberg reported that the company is limiting all staff to $1,500 in monthly token spending per AI coding tool, with the caps applying only to agentic coding software.
Employees have a dashboard to track their AI use, and they may also ask permission to exceed their normal cap.
"We think this is all a pretty straightforward way to responsibly encourage agentic AI adoption and experimentation at scale across the company," a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The move comes after Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga told The Information in April that the company had already used up its entire AI budget because of token costs.
AI use has been widespread across Uber, with CEO Khosrowshahi previously noting that 10% of the company's code was submitted and built by AI agents. Legal and marketing teams have seen an increase in usage of the technology.
