Lyft is using Anthropic’s Claude AI for customer service

Lyft announced a new partnership with Anthropic to use the Claude AI assistant to handle customer service requests.

Claude is already being put to use handling service inquiries from drivers, reducing the average resolution time for a request by 87 percent, the company said.

In an example provided by Lyft, a driver asks the chatbot for the requirements for driving for Lyft in their area, to which the chatbot responds with a list of five requirements.

How well the new AI-powered service requests will go over with drivers remains to be seen. Lyft drivers, along with Uber drivers, have long complained about the impersonal nature of the companies' stance toward drivers, including the lack of human customer service support. Using an AI chatbot to handle even more service requests could exacerbate those sentiments among drivers.

Lyft says the new chatbot will only handle the most common support questions, redirecting customers to human specialists when more detailed assistance is required.

The company is also using generative AI to boost productivity among its engineers, with as much as 1 in 4 lines of code produced using these technologies.

Lyft and Anthropic, which is backed by Amazon and Google, say they are exploring new products and capabilities, in the hopes of integrating Claude into more of the ridehail company's features.