At Uber, the adoption of generative AI is not just a matter of strategy or innovation—it’s a reflection of culture. For Andrea Monllau, Senior Manager of Americas Strategy for Uber, the shift to embracing Gen AI has been as much about people as it has been about platforms. Speaking from her perspective as both a strategist and a champion for transformation, Monllau in her interview with me describes a workplace where curiosity is encouraged, expertise is shared, and experimentation is the norm.
Uber’s relative youth and deep tech roots have made it fertile ground for early Gen AI adoption. “We were born in the era of data and technology,” Monllau notes. That gives Uber an edge over legacy organizations still wrestling with digital transformation. Across the company, teams are not just exploring Gen AI—they are actively embedding it into their workflows. Within the Places team, which oversees workplace strategy and corporate real estate, Gen AI isn’t just a shiny new tool. It’s a foundational component of how work is evolving.
Prompting Parties and Peer Support
The story of Gen AI at Uber isn’t one of top-down mandates or rigid programs. Instead, it’s one of grassroots learning and community-driven innovation. Team members are not only using tools like ChatGPT and Gemini—they’re coaching each other in how to use them better.
“We call them prompting parties,” says Monllau, with a smile. These informal sessions are designed for collective problem-solving. Someone might share a prompt that didn’t deliver the desired outcome, and others will jump in to tweak and improve it. This shared iteration helps people move from frustration to fluency.
As the team’s skills have grown, so has the ambition of their projects. Colleagues are building their own chatbots, then sharing them with others. “I created this chatbot, here’s what it does—if it’s useful, feel free to use it,” Monllau explains. The community has moved beyond sharing successes to co-creating solutions. It’s not about doing the work for someone else—it’s about showing them how, and empowering them to grow.
Peer mentorship is central to this ethos. Monllau describes turning to colleagues with deeper technical knowledge and deliberately inviting others into those conversations. “If I don’t know something, I don’t ask privately. I ask publicly. Because if I have the question, someone else probably does too.” This intentional vulnerability fosters psychological safety and speeds collective learning.
Making Adoption Inevitable
When it came to rolling out Gen AI more broadly, Monllau and her team leaned into two messages: the opportunity and the inevitability. The opportunity is clear—greater efficiency, faster analysis, and more time for creative, strategic thinking. But the inevitability is just as compelling. “If you were an accountant when Excel came out and you didn’t use it, you got left behind,” Monllau says. Gen AI, she believes, is that level of disruption.
To get everyone on board, Uber deployed enterprise-wide trainings that mixed technical demos with practical use cases. “We blocked time on calendars and said, this training is highly encouraged—make sure you take it.” These sessions provided the groundwork for individual teams to begin experimenting and sharing on their own.
The goal wasn’t perfection—it was participation. People were encouraged to speak openly about their experiments, no matter how small. When someone used Gen AI in a new way, they were celebrated. These stories helped normalize the technology and built momentum across the team.
Navigating Risks and Building Trust
Of course, Gen AI isn’t without its risks. Bias, hallucinations, and data security are real concerns. Uber addresses these through a combination of policy and practice. The company classifies data into different levels, with strict rules about what can be shared with AI platforms.
But the biggest safeguard, Monllau says, is human judgment. “AI is a support tool—it helps you accelerate, but it doesn’t replace you.” Teams use Gen AI to generate initial drafts or compile scenario data, but they still come together to analyze and decide. “We believe there isn’t one answer to anything. AI offers a perspective, not a conclusion.”
That collaborative mindset applies to managing bias as well. By sharing outputs, challenging assumptions, and reviewing results together, Uber’s teams keep human insight at the center of AI use. It’s a model of augmented intelligence rather than artificial replacement.
The Road Ahead for Gen AI at Uber
Looking forward, Monllau sees Gen AI accelerating the pace of work and elevating the type of work humans do. “We’ll automate repetitive tasks and use AI to get us to the first draft faster. Then we come together to do the thinking, the fun part.” For corporate real estate—a traditionally conservative sector—this shift could be transformative.
She’s particularly excited about how Gen AI is attracting new players to the space. “We’re seeing entrants from outside the traditional real estate world—people with tech backgrounds, new ideas. That’s healthy. It challenges us to move beyond the old-school way of doing things.”
Even as the tools evolve, Monllau emphasizes that the heart of Uber’s success with Gen AI lies in its culture. A culture where asking questions is safe, sharing knowledge is expected, and no one is left behind. “This is new for everyone,” she says. “We should be helping each other.”
In a world racing toward digital transformation, Uber’s approach stands out. It’s not just about deploying technology. It’s about building communities of learning around that technology—where every chatbot, every prompt, and every question is part of a shared journey forward.
About the Author
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky was named “Office Whisperer” by The New York Times for helping leaders overcome frustrations with hybrid work and Generative AI. He serves as the CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. Dr. Gleb wrote seven best-selling books, and his two most recent ones are Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams and ChatGPT for Leaders and Content Creators: Unlocking the Potential of Generative AI. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 650 articles in prominent venues such as Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Fast Company. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox and over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill and Ohio State. A proud Ukrainian American, Dr. Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio.
