Lyft Partners with Anthropic to Integrate AI into Ridesharing Services

Lyft and Anthropic Are Joining Forces to Bring Artificial Intelligence to Ridesharing

The companies announced the partnership on Thursday, stating that Anthropic's AI system, Claude, is already at work powering Lyft's customer service. Claude reportedly handles thousands of customer service requests daily, and has reduced resolution times by about 87 percent. The announcement noted Claude transfers complicated requests to human workers. "Lyft is using Claude to both reimagine the future of ridesharing, and at the same time deliver tangible benefits to their community today," Michael Gerstenhaber, vice president of product Management at Anthropic, said in a statement.

Lyft uses Anthropic's Claude chatbot to handle user complaints

It's the start of a partnership that will see Lyft deploy Anthropic's tech across its business. Lyft is partnering with Anthropic to bring the startup's AI tech to its platform. "Anthropic, known for its human-centric approach to AI, will work with Lyft to build smart, safe, and empathetic AI-powered products that put riders and drivers first," the two said in a joint press release. If you're a frequent Lyft rider, you can see the early results of that collaboration when you go through the company's customer care AI assistant, which features integration with Anthrophic's Claude chatbot. According to Lyft, the tool is already helping to resolve thousands of customer issues every day, and has reduced average resolution times by 87 percent. Moving forward, Lyft plans to integrate Anthropic's tech across its business. As part of the partnership, Lyft will get early access to the startup's products and models, and will in turn assist Anthropic with testing those capabilities. Lyft says this will allow it to integrate Anthropic's AI models in a way that aligns with the needs of its drivers and customers. Last but not least, Anthropic will provide training and education to Lyft's software engineers. "Lyft is using Claude to both reimagine the future of ridesharing, and at the same time deliver tangible benefits to their community today," said Michael Gerstenhaber, vice president of product management at Anthropic. "This approach, combined with their deep collaboration with our team of experts, creates a blueprint for how companies can successfully bring AI into their business." Lyft is no stranger to working with other companies, particularly when it involves AI technology. At the end of last year, it partnered with three companies in the autonomous vehicle space -- Mobileye, May Mobility and Nexar. Lyft plans to start introducing their technologies into its network starting this year.

Lyft and Anthropic Partner on AI Products for Ridesharing | PYMNTS.com

The first phase of the collaboration is already underway, with Lyft's customer care AI assistant being powered by Anthropic's AI model, Claude, via Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic said in a Thursday press release. This AI assistant handles thousands of customers inquiries each day, transitions complex cases to human specialists when needed, and has reduced customer service resolution time by 87%, according to the release. "Lyft is using Claude to both reimagine the future of ridesharing, and at the same time deliver tangible benefits to their community today," Anthropic Vice President of Product Management Michael Gerstenhaber said in the release. The collaboration of the two companies will also include other AI applications designed to enhance the rideshare experience for both riders and drivers, Lyft's participation in early testing for new products and capabilities, and Anthropic's training of Lyft's engineering teams to accelerate their ability to build AI-powered features, according to the release. "Software engineering has undergone a seismic shift with the introduction of GenAI technologies," Lyft Executive Vice President, Platforms Jason Vogrinec said in Lyft's press release about the partnership. "Gone are the days when humans were predominantly writing code. With the promise of LLMs, especially leading models for coding like Claude, and agentic AI, we're working to revolutionize our engineering organization to more effectively build game changing products for our customers." Generating code and assisting employees and customers with accessing information are the two highest ranked use cases for generative AI, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report, "AI in the Chat: Generative AI's Growing Role in Customer Service." The report found that the percentage of chief marketing officers who found the technology "very or extremely effective" for generating code increased from 80% in April to 100% in July, while the percentage who said the same about accessing information increased from 72% in April to 97% in July.

Lyft is using Anthropic's Claude AI for customer service

Andrew J. Hawkins is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Lyft announced a new partnership with Anthropic to use the Claude AI assistant to handle customer service requests. Claude is already being put to use handling service inquiries from drivers, reducing the average resolution time for a request by 87 percent, the company said. In an example provided by Lyft, a driver asks the chatbot for the requirements for driving for Lyft in their area, to which the chatbot responds with a list of five requirements. How well the new AI-powered service requests will go over with drivers remains to be seen. Lyft drivers, along with Uber drivers, have long complained about the impersonal nature of the companies' stance toward drivers, including the lack of human customer service support. Using an AI chatbot to handle even more service requests could exacerbate those sentiments among drivers. Lyft says the new chatbot will only handle the most common support questions, redirecting customers to human specialists when more detailed assistance is required. The company is also using generative AI to boost productivity among its engineers, with as much as 1 in 4 lines of code produced using these technologies. Lyft and Anthropic, which is backed by Amazon and Google, say they are exploring new products and capabilities, in the hopes of integrating Claude into more of the ridehail company's features.

Lyft's new AI customer assistant is powered by Anthropic's Claude | TechCrunch

Ride-hail giant Lyft has partnered with AI startup Anthropic to build an AI assistant that handles initial intake for customer service inquiries for both riders and drivers. It's the first phase of a broader collaboration between the two companies to use Anthropic's services to research and test new Lyft products and build software internally. The tie-up comes four months after Uber announced a similar partnership with OpenAI to launch an AI-powered assistant that can answer driver questions about EVs. More recently, Uber announced a collaboration with OpenAI's new AI agent called Operator to help customers automate ordering food or scheduling rides. Lyft quietly incorporated Claude, Anthropic's family of large language models, into its customer care AI assistant in late 2024 via Amazon Bedrock, according to Anthropic. It provides answers to common support issues and redirects customers to a human specialist for more complicated tasks. This isn't Lyft's first time with an AI chatbot; the company first introduced one to help triage customer complaints in 2018. But as anyone who has ever had to rely on a chatbot can tell you, old school chatbots are limited and infuriatingly bot-like. Claude is known for its human-like responses, which could make all the difference to a customer seeking a resolution to a problem. Or, it could be just another chatbot that allows companies to spend less money on customer service by forsaking the human assistants who could actually solve the problem much faster. Despite the promises of generative AI, most people still don't want to talk to a bot when they have a problem to solve. A recent Gartner survey found that 64% of customers would rather companies don't use AI for customer service. Another study found that when customers see they're talking to an AI chatbot, it lowers emotional trust. Still, Lyft says its Claude-powered assistant is working, and that it has reduced the average customer service resolution time by 87% and resolves thousands of customer requests every day. TechCrunch has reached out to confirm the definition of a resolved customer service request, and whether some of those resolutions are people just signing off in a huff of frustration. Lyft's nonexclusive partnership with Anthropic goes beyond chatbots. As part of the deal, Anthropic will provide Lyft's engineers with training and education to teach them how to incorporate the AI company's tools into their workflows. Lyft uses AI to power its entire platform - everything from getting accurate ETAs and optimizing routes to choosing the right destination and coordinating rider pickup. Anthropic's tools could help improve Lyft's service so it can better compete with its main rival Uber. "Software engineering has undergone a seismic shift with the introduction of GenAI technologies. Gone are the days when humans were predominantly writing code," Jason Vogrinec, executive vice president of platforms at Lyft, said in a statement. "With the promise of LLMs, especially leading models for coding like Claude, and agentic AI, we're working to revolutionize our engineering organization to more effectively build game changing products for our customers." Anthropic also runs an "exclusive early access program" where certain customers can research and test new products. Neither Lyft nor Anthropic would share what such products might be, but an Anthropic spokesperson said Lyft's feedback would help ensure that the company's models and capabilities are "helpful for end users." Anthropic has raised $13.75 billion to date, per PitchBook data, including most recently $1 billion from Google. The company is in the process of raising another $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation.