Economy

Waymo confirms January 2028 split with Uber in Austin and Atlanta

Robotaxi operator takes bookings onto its own app months before contract expiry, co-CEO calls the Uber experience a crapshoot where passengers never knew if a robot or human would arrive

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Waymo will end its ride-hailing partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana confirmed to Bloomberg on Wednesday. Rides in both markets will move to Waymo's own smartphone app, as they already do in the company's other cities. The deal was set to expire in May 2028.

The confirmation follows Financial Times reporting that Waymo was looking to get out of the arrangement. Mawakana said Waymo had partnered with Uber in the first place because the ride-hail giant offered scale, but the experience for riders using Uber's app had been "a little bit of a crapshoot" — passengers never knew for sure whether they would hail a robotaxi or a human-driven car. "It's important for us to have that relationship with the rider," she said, citing feedback from riders in those markets.

Uber told Bloomberg that it was Waymo's idea not to add an option in Uber's app to book a robotaxi directly. The company retains many other robotaxi and autonomous-vehicle partners, and its platform continues to pool them with human drivers behind a single app.

The split runs along the line that always separated the two companies. Uber aggregates demand but owns no cars; Waymo owns the cars and, in Austin and Atlanta, had until now handed the passengers to someone else. Taking bookings onto its own app closes that gap and leaves Uber as a marketplace whose most advanced supplier no longer needs the shelf. Uber's answer is breadth — many autonomous fleets and human drivers in one place — while Waymo's is certainty: riders who open its app will get a robot, which was precisely the uncertainty Mawakana complained about.

Whether customers who liked choosing between a robot and a human will accept the choice being made for them is the question neither company can answer before January 2028.

The contract ran to May 2028. Waymo leaves four months early.