Autonomous vehicle technology may be, at last, entering its moment to take a more leading role on the transportation stage. And the producer is Uber.
The ubiquitous ride-hailing company operating in 15,000 cities and 70 countries is “laser focused on a singular goal, which is building the best platform in the world for tech developers to deploy their autonomous technology on the Uber platform,” Richard Willder, its global head of autonomous policy, said during a panel at the fifth annual 2025 Curbivore conference in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Uber aims to have its platform serve as the technology base for autonomous vehicle operators to support their operations, offering users a choice between an autonomous ride-hailing experience or delivery, or one served by humans. It’s what Willder characterized as a “hybrid model.”
“As the largest combined mobility-delivery-freight platform in the world, we’re pretty uniquely positioned at Uber to build this platform, and offer it to all our partners for the deployment of this technology,” he said.
To be clear, this vision is still in the beginning stages, and has not scaled in any significant fashion. And Uber still sees “a long-term future for the role of drivers and couriers on the platform,” Willder said.
Meanwhile, other companies like Waymo are quickly becoming market leaders in the so-called robotaxi arena; it offers service in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas, with plans to expand into Atlanta and Miami. The company’s self-driving cars now do more than 250,000 rides with paying passengers every week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said recently.
The autonomous industry is also poised to see a far friendlier regulatory landscape in its future. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within the U.S. Transportation Department has put forward a “new Automated Vehicle (AV) Framework” as part of its transportation agenda.
“This Administration understands that we’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy said in a statement Thursday. “As part of DOT’s innovation agenda, our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard that spurs innovation and prioritizes safety.”
That could be welcome news to companies like Tesla, which plans to debut its autonomous taxi service in Austin in June. The move marks a key milestone for the electric vehicle maker, which has seen declining sales and popularity in recent months. Tech leaders sidestepped concerns around what happens to jobs when driverless cars forgo the driver.
Today, “there is such a shortage of drivers and couriers, so that adding autonomous deliveries and rides will help to grow these services,” Sergei Kirillov, chief commercial officer at autonomous driving tech developer Avride, said during the panel. The AV industry, he added, will help to create jobs for software developers, engineers and others.
Uber said it is now, and will continue, hiring people to perform tasks like maintaining and cleaning vehicles, managing charging operations, and numerous other tech jobs.
“I definitely think what we’re saying to a ton of different drivers is that there’s going to continue to be a role for drivers and couriers on the platform, despite the increasing number of AVs,” Willder said. “There’s still going to be roles for them to play, moving people from A to B.”
