Uber’s product chief says the company wants to focus, not become “everything for everyone,” while weighing hotels and AV experiments

Uber Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal used a TechCrunch conversation to frame the company’s next phase as a set of targeted expansions rather than a universal marketplace. Kansal argued that Uber should not aim to be “everything for everyone,” even as it explores new lines of business that extend beyond rides and deliveries.

The interview highlighted Uber’s push into adjacent travel services, including hotels, positioning the feature as part of a broader effort to keep users within Uber’s app for more of a trip, not just the ride to get there. Kansal also addressed the logic behind Uber’s financial-services ambitions, an area that would deepen relationships with drivers, riders, and merchants by layering payments, products, or related services into the platform experience.

On autonomous vehicles, Kansal pointed to an increasingly complex environment in which Uber’s role is not just about deploying technology, but also about coordinating with existing partners. The discussion referenced Uber’s relationship with Waymo, indicating that collaboration dynamics and operational constraints are likely to shape how quickly Uber can scale any robotaxi vision in practice.

Uber’s product and strategy conversation also touched on its AV Labs initiative, described in the report as a data-oriented operation. AV Labs, in this context, refers to the effort to gather, analyze, and process information that can support autonomous-vehicle development, testing, and evaluation. The point raised was that improvements in AI systems often depend on large volumes of high-quality data and the ability to organize and learn from it systematically.

Kansal’s comments tied the company’s AI trajectory to day-to-day product priorities, suggesting that Uber is treating artificial intelligence as an enabling layer across multiple domains. That includes not only areas related to automation and mapping, but also the ranking and recommendation decisions inside Uber’s consumer-facing features, where AI can influence what users see and when.

The interview also served as a contrast to the common “platform everything” narrative in tech. Rather than arguing that Uber should become a one-stop solution for every category, Kansal positioned focus as a competitive advantage, implying that spreading attention across too many initiatives can dilute execution. That theme, according to the reporting, was central to why Uber wants to pick specific opportunities where it can leverage its existing network effects, operational capabilities, and data.

Still, the conversation left open many specifics that investors and partners typically want, such as timetables for any hotel rollouts, how quickly financial-services products could scale, and the near-term shape of any autonomous-vehicle deployments in coordination with Waymo. The report did not provide detailed, verifiable metrics or schedules in the available material, so it is not possible to assess how these initiatives will translate into measurable results or revenue at this stage.

Looking ahead, Uber’s next disclosures on hotels, financial services, and AV Labs will likely matter less for what the company explores and more for how it chooses to prioritize. Watch for clarity on whether Uber’s expansions remain tightly connected to the core trip workflow, and whether partner-based autonomy progresses in a way that reduces operational complexity rather than increasing it.