Uber is rolling out ChatGPT Work to more than 30,000 employees worldwide, seven weeks after announcing plans to cut around 3,300 jobs in a major restructuring.
The company-wide deployment expands an initial pilot involving 1,000 employees and gives teams across Uber access to OpenAI's AI agent for workplace tasks, including research, data analysis, presentations and workflow management.
The timing places Uber's AI expansion alongside its recent workforce restructuring. Neither company has said the two developments are connected, and there is no evidence that the planned job cuts were driven by the adoption of ChatGPT Work.
Uber's 3,300 Job Cuts
On 2 September, Uber announced plans to reduce its workforce by around 10%, with reports putting the number of affected jobs at approximately 3,300.
Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the restructuring was intended to simplify the company's organisation, reduce management layers and help teams move faster. Uber also said it wanted to focus its people and investment on its most important opportunities.
The company framed the changes as an organisational restructuring rather than a reflection of employees' contributions.
Uber did not cite artificial intelligence as the reason for the planned cuts. The subsequent expansion of ChatGPT Work raises a broader question for the industry: as major employers introduce AI into everyday operations, how will the technology change the tasks people perform and the way companies organise their work?
ChatGPT Work Goes Company-Wide
OpenAI announced on 22 October that ChatGPT Work would become available to more than 30,000 employees across Uber's global workforce.
The deployment follows an initial pilot involving 1,000 employees and represents Uber's first company-wide deployment of an agentic platform tailored to knowledge work, according to OpenAI.
ChatGPT Work is designed to handle complex, multi-step tasks rather than simply answer individual questions. It can support activities such as researching information, preparing meeting briefs, creating presentations and analysing data, as well as completing workflows across applications.
OpenAI said the platform connects with tools including Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar and Slack. Uber is also supporting the rollout with an internal AI skills library, approved integrations and dedicated employee training.
The technology is being introduced across teams including operations, finance, marketing and product. Software engineering teams will continue to use Codex, OpenAI's coding-focused tool.
The initial pilot also suggested that interest in workplace AI was not confined to technical staff. TechCrunch reported that around 80% of early adopters were non-engineers, citing Uber vice-president of engineering Sumanth Sukumar.
Uber's AI Pods
During the pilot, Uber also experimented with teams designed to help employees identify tasks that could be automated.
According to Sukumar, 30 AI engineers were paired with teams for two weeks to help automate key parts of their work. He described these groups as 'AI pods'.
Sukumar told TechCrunch that employees had used the tools to analyse complex operational data, identify trends and develop recommendations. Other examples included localising training materials for different markets and languages, and building personalised interactive dashboards to manage daily work.
These examples illustrate how Uber is exploring AI to support practical tasks across the business, including work that employees previously handled manually.
They do not, however, demonstrate that Uber is using ChatGPT Work to eliminate jobs or that the technology played a role in the September restructuring. Automating individual tasks and replacing entire roles are different outcomes, and the company has not established a link between the two announcements.
Uber has said it wants to give teams room to experiment with AI. It plans to track employee usage, workflows and effectiveness as the wider deployment progresses.
The Cost of Uber's AI Rollout
The expansion raises questions about the financial and operational impact of introducing AI tools across a workforce of this size.
TechCrunch reported that Uber did not disclose how much the deployment would cost. OpenAI's public announcement did not include quantified results showing whether the expanded rollout had improved productivity, saved time or delivered financial returns.
OpenAI said the rollout would be supported by training, approved integrations and internal resources intended to help employees use the technology effectively. The companies have said they plan to share further insights into adoption, use cases and measurable outcomes as the deployment progresses.
For now, the scale of the rollout demonstrates Uber's commitment to putting AI tools into everyday business operations, but its practical benefits remain to be measured.
OpenAI's Push Into the Workplace
For OpenAI, Uber's deployment represents a substantial expansion of its enterprise technology within a major global company.
Rather than limiting access to a small group of specialists, the rollout puts ChatGPT Work in the hands of employees across multiple functions. That gives Uber an opportunity to test how AI agents can support different types of work at scale.
OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman described the deployment as a step towards giving more employees access to advanced AI capabilities and tools for complex work.
Uber chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga said the company wanted to give employees the tools to innovate, solve problems and help shape its future. He added: 'I can't wait to see what our teams build with it.'
The longer-term significance will depend on whether employees use the tools consistently, whether the technology improves their work and whether Uber can demonstrate measurable gains.
With the company expanding AI access weeks after announcing thousands of planned job cuts, those outcomes are likely to attract attention. However, the available evidence does not establish a link between ChatGPT Work and the workforce reductions.
