Uber will use ChatGPT to encourage EV use

Uber (UBER) wants to encourage users and drivers to choose electric vehicles.

To do this, the company will roll out an AI assistant, powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT GPT-4o, that will answer drivers’ questions about buying and using electric vehicles, as opposed to a gas-powered car, executives said at the meeting . Go Get Zero sustainability conference

Sachin Kansal, vice president of product management at Uber, said the AI ​​driver assistant is already in beta testing and will launch within a few months with EV-specific questions and other use cases.

‘EV Preference’, another new feature for users, allows customers to hail only fully electric vehicles. That feature will be rolled out to the app in the coming months, and the company believes the option will “help many riders go green,” Kansal said.

“We need more affordable electric vehicles, we need stronger EV mandates, we need incentives for people who drive the most,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at the conference. “We want to ensure chargers are available in every community, not just the wealthiest. So we all have to go a step further.”

As part of that push, Uber Green – the company’s EV and hybrid offering that it first launched in 2020 – is now an EV-only service in 40 cities and states around the world, including major hubs like New York City, Los Angeles and Paris. and Sydney.

These efforts are another step toward achieving the company’s goals sustainability initiativesincluding becoming a zero-emission mobility platform in North America and Europe by 2030 and globally by 2040.

The company said there are currently more than 182,000 electric vehicles on the Uber app.