Uber lays off 10% of its support staff and introduces an AI voice agent

July 23rd 2026 — Uber announces layoffs for 10% of their Community Operations team (global support centre). This team worked in multiple countries & languages. The reason stated was “simplifying operations, enhancing face-to-face collaboration & accelerating our use of AI”.

VP Megha Yethadka confessed that the Community Operations team was “too complex & fragmented” & that they need “an efficient organisation to build AI on”. They are using Voice AI to resolve user issues & queries. So this enabled them to make the cuts.

1Not Just Uber: The Layoff Wave Has Hit the Biggest Names in Tech

Oracle reduced 21,000 jobs, Snap removed around 1000 jobs & Meta fired 8,000 employees (10% of total). All of these companies said AI was the main reason behind their layoffs. Uber had already slowed down its hiring. They blamed it on increasing their ability to automate.

Call centres have been one of the biggest employers around the world (particularly in developing countries) for decades. But they are now at the forefront of the first big wave of AI-enabled job losses. This has happened much sooner than what most labour economists expected.