Uber's Chief Product Officer, Sachin Kansal, discussed the company's expansion beyond ride-hailing and delivery into travel services, including hotel bookings powered by Expedia and boat rentals. He explained that the focus on travel was driven by data showing 1.5 billion trips on the platform occur outside a user's home city, making travel a natural third pillar for the company alongside rides and food delivery. Kansal also addressed Uber's financial services ambitions, which currently focus on drivers and couriers through products like the Uber Pro debit card. The interview also covered Uber's increasingly complex relationship with autonomous vehicle partners like Waymo. Kansal detailed the company's new AV Labs unit, which is developing a fleet of sensor-equipped vehicles to gather driving data. While Uber frames this as a way to strengthen partnerships, it also serves as a hedge, giving the company leverage and optionality as it competes with some of those same partners. Kansal walked through how AI is beginning to appear in ways that riders and drivers will notice, and discussed the company's philosophy of not wanting to be "everything for everyone," despite expanding its offerings.
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