Uber said on Thursday (Oct. 16), that it is introducing a new way for some of its U.S. drivers to earn money by taking on digital tasks tied to the company’s data labeling business, Bloomberg reported.
The program, launching later this fall, adds a “digital tasks” category to the Uber driver app. It allows registered drivers to complete short, smartphone-based assignments such as uploading restaurant menus or recording audio samples in multiple languages. Payments will vary by task and time commitment, Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal told Bloomberg.
Uber said the effort aims to give drivers additional ways to earn income when they are not on the road. Kansal added that the initiative is not a response to potential displacement from autonomous vehicles but part of the company’s strategy to attract and retain drivers by expanding income opportunities.
The move extends Uber’s expansion into artificial intelligence services through its Uber AI Solutions division, which provides annotation, translation and AI model training services to enterprise clients. According to PYMNTS, the division recently expanded to 30 countries and introduced new tools for creating datasets that train multimodal and agent-based systems. Uber said the goal is to combine its software and global operational network to support organizations building scalable AI pipelines.
Uber also strengthened its technical base with the acquisition of Segments.ai, a lidar and multi-sensor annotation startup focused on robotics, mapping and autonomous technology. PYMNTS reported that Segments.ai’s team joined Uber AI Solutions to enhance its labeling capabilities and broaden its customer base for perception and sensor data services. The company said the acquisition supports its ambition to become a major provider of high-quality training data across multiple industries.
The new app-based digital tasks are designed to be simpler and faster to complete than projects offered on Uber’s existing web platform, which recruits global gig workers for complex annotation and translation jobs. Uber has been testing the feature in India and plans to expand it to U.S. drivers before potentially opening participation to non-drivers, Kansal said.
The initiative reflects growing demand for human-verified datasets across the AI industry. Uber’s latest move positions the company to leverage its global driver network not only for transportation but also for AI development and data infrastructure in an increasingly automation-driven economy.
Source: https://www.pymnts.com/
