For the past 10 years, Uber’s annual lost and found index has provided a rather peculiar anthropological snapshot of its users, and even some insights into society. The annual catalog of millions of forgotten items ranges from today’s mundane tools, such as smartphones and laptops, to more surprising objects, such as live fish, an ankle monitor, a slide, a package of live butterflies and a single Louboutin shoe.
This year, Uber is using the report to highlight the same old problem of lost items with a new twist: robotaxis. Thousands of items (it’s too new for millions) were left abandoned in robotaxis on Uber’s transportation network over the past year, the company said Tuesday. There were the usual suspects: phones, keys, wallets, passports and headphones, along with a few items that strayed from the category of who this passenger is: a set of dentures, an “I Heart Hot Dads” bag and a blue hat that says “Emotional Support Human.”
Beyond this entertaining list lies a business opportunity, even if it is minor. Even in a robot taxi future, someone will still have to return the things that passengers leave behind.
Uber has spent the last few years establishing dozens of partnerships with autonomous vehicle (AV) technology companies. But it really wasn’t until March 2025, when the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service launched in Austin, that the commercial wheels of its AV business began to turn. Since then, Uber and Waymo have also started a robotaxi service in Atlanta. Uber added other audiovisual companies to its app last year, including Motional in Las Vegas and Avride in Dallas, although they still have human safety operators behind the wheel.
The fact that Uber has already recorded thousands of lost items in just 12 months gives an idea of how many robotaxi trips have been completed on its app. The underlying message here is that Uber’s existing network is already set up to reunite passengers with their lost items, including a 15-pound yo-yo, a large black marble duck, a Squishmallow, and a Charli XCX poster.
When an Uber user forgets their belongings in a robotaxi, the process to recover them is similar to any other Uber trip: open the app, click on the activity tab, select the trip during which the item was lost, and contact customer service. Passengers can then message, chat, or call a support agent. If they locate the item, they have two options: pay $15 for an Uber Courier driver to make local delivery on the same day, or pick up the item in person at an AV warehouse, where vehicles are stored and repaired.
Uber Courier is a rebrand of Uber Connect, which launched in 2020 and allowed users to send packages and personal items between local addresses. But Uber says its robotaxi support network involves much more than reusing existing services.
“With tens of millions of lost items reported at Uber each year, we’ve spent the last decade building systems that help passengers quickly and easily reunite with their belongings,” Amy Satrom, Uber’s global head of autonomous support, said in a statement. “As autonomous travel continues to scale at Uber, we’re bringing that same expertise to autonomous vehicles, combining our fleet operations, support teams and hybrid network to simplify the recovery of a lost item, even when there’s no driver behind the wheel.”
In February, the company announced Uber autonomous solutionsa new business division that conveys its greater ambitions around driverless technology. The division provides companies with a suite of services that handle all tasks associated with operating a robotaxi, autonomous truck or curbside delivery robot business, including software and support services.
And Uber clearly intends to make autonomous vehicles a major revenue generator. The company plans to offer robotaxi rides through its app in up to 15 cities around the world by the end of the year and has said it intends to be the world’s largest AV ride facilitator by 2029.
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