Ride-hailing giant Uber is promoting its data labeling services to potential clients following Meta’s 49% acquisition of Scale AI — a move that reportedly unsettled some companies previously partnered with Scale, including OpenAI and Google.
In an interview with Fortune, Uber executive Megha Yethadka said the company is expanding its AI business by offering large-scale data sets and tools to organizations developing in-house AI models. This includes licensing Uber’s data labeling platform and related technologies to help customers build AI agents.
“For Uber, our core has always been being the platform of choice for flexible on-demand work,” Yethadka said. “That extends itself really well to this business of digital tasks now.”
Uber unveiled its data labeling platform last year, with Bloomberg reporting in November that the company offered “coders for hire” on AI projects.
On Friday, Uber AI announced the expansion of its AI data platform, which offers “customized data solutions for building smarter AI models and agents.”
Data labeling is the process of assigning tags or annotations to raw data sets like images, text or audio, which makes them more understandable to AI and machine learning models. Industry research projects that the data labeling market could eclipse $17 billion by 2030.
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Meta moves into data labeling through Scale AI investment
As Fortune reported, Uber’s expansion into the data labeling market follows Meta’s $14.8 billion investment in Scale. The deal not only bolstered Mark Zuckerberg’s position in the AI race but also reportedly unsettled some of Scale’s existing clients.
That sentiment was echoed in a Bloomberg report on Thursday, which said ChatGPT maker OpenAI is phasing out its use of Scale’s data services in the wake of the Meta deal.
Big Tech companies are actively pursuing artificial intelligence infrastructure and applications in the quest to dominate a potentially transformative industry. This comes as industry pioneers such as Ben Goertzel say that the dawn of artificial general intelligence could be just a few years away.
As CNBC reports, America’s large technology companies are expected to spend more than $300 billion on AI this year alone.
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