Uber is expanding its service offerings beyond ride-hailing and food delivery into the travel sector, allowing U.S. customers to book hotels directly within the app, according to TechCrunch.
During the company's 'Go-Get' annual event in New York City on Wednesday, Uber announced a new partnership with Expedia Group. This integration provides immediate access to more than 700,000 hotels worldwide.
The company also plans to integrate vacation rental inventory from Vrbo into the app later this year. This move signals a strategic shift toward becoming a comprehensive travel platform.
Uber is leveraging its subscription service, Uber One, to drive adoption of these new features. Members will receive 20% discounts on a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in Uber Credits on all bookings, the report stated.
AI-driven development speeds up product launches
Beyond the expansion into lodging, Uber unveiled new AI-powered voice booking features and a widespread search tool. The company claims that agentic AI tools, such as Cursor, have significantly accelerated their development cycle.
Uber Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga told TechCrunch that several of these new products moved from initial idea to app launch within just a few months. He noted that the emergence of agentic AI late last year has fundamentally changed how the company builds software.
"What we have seen the last few months is a fundamental reset, a new way of building software," Naga said.
Naga explained that a feature like hotel bookings traditionally requires at least a year for development, testing, and debugging. With the new AI-driven workflows, that timeframe has been cut in half. He expects development speeds to increase further as more engineers adopt these tools.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi emphasized that the company's mission has grown far beyond its original scope.
“We’re no longer just an app for rides, or even two apps, or [a] family of apps for both rides and eats,” Khosrowshahi said.
“Uber is now an app for everything, where you can go, you can get and now you can travel,” he added.
