Uber Acquires Startup Geometric Intelligence To Launch Its AI Division

Uber is coming closer to its self-driving cars goal.

The ride-sharing company announced Monday it launched Uber AI Labs, a new department based in San Francisco which will focus on research in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Uber also revealed it has acquired the AI research startup Geometric Intelligence. The 15 members of the startup will form the primary core of the AI Labs team.

With the company’s new moves, Uber is betting that artificial intelligence could improve its services. AI can help in determining an optimal route for rides and UberEats deliveries and can improve ride arrival predictions. AI can also do a better job at matching riders for uberPool, the company says.

“In spite of notable wins with machine learning in recent years, we are still very much in the early innings of machine intelligence,” said Uber's product chief Jeff Holden. “The formation of Uber AI Labs, to be directed by Geometric’s Founding CEO Gary Marcus, represents Uber’s commitment to advancing the state of the art, driven by our vision that moving people and things in the physical world can be radically faster, safer and accessible to all.”

The announcement comes after Pittsburgh started testing autonomous Ubers on its streets in September.

“This pilot is a big step forward,” Uber said in September. “Real-world testing is critical to the success of this technology. And creating a viable alternative to individual car ownership is important to the future of cities.”

The company said self-driving Ubers have “enormous potential” to reduce the number of traffic accidents, which “kill 1.3 million people a year; freeing up the 20 percent of space in cities currently used to park the world’s billion plus cars; and cutting congestion, which wastes trillions of hours every year.”