Uber has expanded its services beyond ride-hailing and delivery to include hotel bookings, boat rentals and more. Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal explains how financial services and AI are playing key roles in this strategy.

‘Travel is the third leg of the stool’, says Kansal, referring to Uber’s existing rides and food services. The company now offers 1.5 billion trips outside users’ home cities each year through partners like Expedia for hotels and local stores for shopping.

Uber also unveiled a new business unit called AV Labs which aims to collect driving data. This could be seen as both strengthening relationships with autonomous vehicle partners and as an insurance policy against direct competition from companies like Waymo, according to Kansal.

However, Uber is keen to avoid being everything for everyone, focusing on financial services experiments for drivers and couriers in select markets instead of competing directly. The company’s membership program, Uber One, has over 51 million members who are benefiting from cross-selling benefits.