Autonomous vehicles to be 'huge tailwind' for rideshares: Lyft CEO

Lyft (LYFT) posted mixed second quarter results, despite it being its first profitable quarter in the company's history. Lyft CEO David Risher joins Market Domination to discuss the overall state of the consumer and the ride-share company's outlook.

In its second quarter, Lyft saw a 16% jump in active riders going to and from restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues. Risher notes that consumer price sensitivity hasn't changed much, explaining that they aren't seeing a meaningful uptick in riders choosing to use Lyft's Wait and Save feature, which allows them to save some money on their ride for longer wait times. To proactively combat consumer price sensitivity, he notes that Lyft is introducing a Price Lock feature which will "give people complete certainty in how much they're gonna pay on a daily commute."

As Lyft looks forward, AI will play a key role in its growth. Risher explains that the technology has been well received by drivers who can get their problems solved quickly and get back on the road faster than before. He adds, "Where I get very excited is, can we create products and services for drivers to help them earn even more on the platform? I think there's a lot of stuff you can do there with AI." He explains that autonomous vehicles will play a key role in the future, saying, "AVs are gonna be a huge tailwind for rideshare because it's gonna add more supply... certainly a safer supply over time and hopefully also a less expensive supply."

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

I, I wanna ask a little bit more about the consumer because, you know, we're sort of halfway a little bit more into earning season and we definitely have heard a little bit of caution on the part of some companies about what's going on with the consumer.

You guys, you mentioned, you saw active riders at a record um, 16% jump in rides to and from restaurants, bars and entertainment venues, anything that indicates to you that the consumer is weakening, more price sensitive and kind of hit to demand anywhere.

It's so interesting.

I mean, we look at our data, you know, and just stare at it so closely and try to find, you know, read those same tea tea leaves.

Honestly, we don't see a lot to talk about there.

It's frustrating because everyone wants to say like, what does this really mean?

Well, is the price sensitivity because I know you, you have talked about that a little bit.

Is that a reflection has, that has the price sensitivity increased in your view?

Yeah, not in a significant way.

And I'll tell you that because we have a product called Wait and Save, which is a great product if you want to wait a little, but you save some money and we don't see a lot of people trading into that.

That's been pretty stable as well.

It's more from our perspective, looking forward, hearing some of the same chatter around price ins and so forth and looking and saying, well, what can we do there almost proactively to try to get ahead of that.

And that's what this new price lock product is all about trying to give people complete certainty and how much they're gonna pay on a daily commute.

So that's why we lean in there.

But honestly, when we look at the current data, we're not actually seeing a lot of a lot to be worried about.

Interesting, you know, another mega trend we talk a lot about on the show, Dave is A I Yeah, and I'm just curious how is Lyft leveraging benefiting from that technology?

A ton, a ton?

And I mean, of course, a lot of it is behind the scenes stuff you don't see around pricing and you know, how do you get the right car at the right place?

Um The place where you're most likely to see it soonest is if you have a problem in customer service and a lot of companies are doing this, we're super excited about the response that we've gotten from our driver community in particular, um who get their problems solved much faster and get back on the road much more quickly as a result of some of the A I chatbot stuff, we're already kind of rolling out, I think then and again, where I get very excited is can we create products and services for, you know, again, for drivers to help them earn even more on the platform?

I think there's a lot of stuff you can do there um, with A I and then of course, as autonomous vehicles come, that's all about artificial intelligence.

That's a, a physical car driving it around, which is, which is A I power and you talked about autonomous vehicles on as well a little bit and that you guys are, are be seeing autonomous vehicles through your platform and particularly in the Southwest.

Are you doing thing?

You know, you don't own the cars obviously.

So it's just a matter of partnering with those who do are, are you actively working on those kinds of partnerships and how do you foster that more?

A vs on the platform?

Yeah.

So first thing I'll say is I think A vs are gonna be a huge tail wind for chair because it's gonna add more supply, right?

Conceivably.

Well, hopefully, certainly a safer supply, you know, over time and hopefully also a less expensive supply.

But what else is going to happen is there's gonna be a whole business model thing that has to go on where the manufacturers say, how can we put these to, to good use, right?

If you spent a lot of money on, on A B development, you want them out and about, you want them utilized 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And that is where we come in.

We're a platform that, that provides demand, we can on board individual cars and so on and so forth.

So a lot of conversations are going on between us and, and various different partners, all the people that you would expect.

Um, it's still very early days.

Of course, as we all know, we're talking about very, very small number of actual vehicles, but everyone we talked to is super excited about a hybrid model between some cars driving themselves and frankly, a lot of cars being driven by drivers for a long time to come.