For the past decade, Uber’s annual Lost & Found Index has offered a quirky anthropological snapshot of its riders - a catalogue of millions of forgotten items ranging from mundane smartphones and laptops to live fish, ankle monitors, toboggans, packages of live butterflies, and single Louboutin shoes. This year, Uber is adding a new twist to the same old problem: robotaxis. The company announced Tuesday that thousands of items (it’s a bit too early for millions) were left behind in robotaxis on its ride-hailing network over the past 12 months. Alongside the usual suspects of phones, keys, wallets, passports, and headphones, riders managed to forget a set of dentures, an “I Heart Hot Dads” bag, and a blue hat reading “Emotional Support Human.”
Beyond this entertaining list lies a business opportunity - albeit a minor one. Even in a future of driverless taxis, someone still has to return the things passengers leave behind. Uber has spent years locking up partnerships with autonomous vehicle (AV) tech companies, but things only started rolling commercially in March 2025 when the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service launched in Austin. Since then, Uber and Waymo have expanded to Atlanta, and Uber has added Motional in Las Vegas and Avride in Dallas (though those still have human safety operators). The fact that Uber has logged thousands of lost items in just 12 months gives some sense of how many robotaxi rides have been completed on its app. The underlying message: Uber’s existing network is ready to reunite riders 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 rider forgets belongings in a robotaxi, the recovery process mirrors any other Uber ride: open the app, click the activity tab, select the trip, and contact customer support. Riders can message, chat, or call a support agent. If the item is found, they have two options: pay $15 for an Uber Courier driver to provide same-day local delivery, or pick it up in person from an AV depot. Uber Courier is a rebrand of Uber Connect, which launched in 2020 for sending packages locally. But Uber insists there’s more to its robotaxi support network than repurposing existing services. “With tens of millions of lost items reported on Uber each year, we’ve spent the last decade building systems that help riders quickly and seamlessly reunite with their belongings,” said Amy Satrom, global head of autonomous support at Uber. “As autonomous rides continue to scale on Uber, we’re bringing that same expertise to AVs - combining our fleet operations, support teams, and hybrid network to make getting a lost item back simple, even when there’s no driver behind the wheel.”
In February, Uber announced Uber Autonomous Solutions, a new business division conveying its bigger ambitions around driverless tech. The division offers companies a suite of services handling everything from software to support for operating robotaxis, self-driving trucks, or sidewalk delivery robots. Uber clearly means to make AVs a major revenue driver: it plans to offer robotaxi rides through its app in as many as 15 cities globally by year’s end and has declared its intention to be the largest facilitator of AV trips in the world by 2029.