Uber drivers can earn during downtime by training its AI

Uber is giving idled drivers a chance to earn extra income by completing small tasks that would enhance its service and create valuable data for sale.

- Sakshi Sadashiv

The ride-hailing company will pay drivers for AI-linked data labelling and annotation within its app, according to two people familiar with the matter. Uber has been conducting the pilot in 12 top Indian cities for about two weeks, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“The most common model, especially in pilots, is to pay workers flat per-task rates. Cash remains the preferred form of incentive, as drivers view it as tangible income rather than a perk,” said one of the people cited above. Payouts typically range from ₹10-₹50 for annotation tasks and ₹5-₹20 for uploading photos, often calculated on a per-minute or per-click basis. These are sometimes bundled into a driver's weekly earnings along with ride or delivery income.

Uber has about 1.4 million driver-partners in India, and the company is monetising its fleet’s idle time. Platforms with physical touchpoints—fleets, IoT devices, connected vehicles—benefit from using idle time to generate precious labelled data that can be used to train internal AI models or can be sold to third parties.

Global demand for high-quality labelled data is projected to reach $17 billion by 2030, according to estimates by the policy research and advocacy group Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International. A 2021 report by Nasscom estimated that India is expected to service over $7 billion of the global annotation market by 2030.

As drivers flag lanes, intersections, or curb rules, these inputs are folded back into Uber's training systems, which will help AI “see” the city more like a human, said the first person quoted earlier. The payoff is better routing, sharper ETAs, and fresher maps since drivers notice roadworks, new one-way streets, or shuttered storefronts long before official feeds do, the person said.