Food for One, Rides for Teens and More: Grab Rolls Out New Features in Huge AI Push
SINGAPORE: Leading regional ride-hailing and food delivery app Grab introduced new products and features at a big launch event here in the company’s home country on Tuesday (April 8). Many of the new features are backed by innovations in artificial intelligence, which its Group CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan has fully embraced and has made significant investments in.
During the splashy event at the JW Marriott ballroom in the city-state, chief product officer Philipp Kandal unveiled the new suite of features in the “everything superapp,” all anchored in the company’s new campaign of “For Every You.”
One of the most applauded was the rollout of Grab for Family for Teens, which allows users aged 13 to 17 to travel independently with extra layers of security features for their parents’ peace of mind. These include assigning the ride to its top-rated driver-partners with proven track records; ride PIN verification for both driver and passenger to ensure teens don’t get into the wrong car with the wrong driver; and a gamechanging always-on AudioProtect feature, that will soon be able to detect through generative AI (GenAI) any sort of emergency, including audio analysis and possible verbal threats or abuse. The Grab for Family-Teen feature also allows parents to track and monitor the ride until the passenger arrives safely in his or her location.
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Another popular feature that drew excited reactions from the live audience is the Advance Booking for Airport Pickup which will allow users to book their rides to and from the airport well in advance. According to Grab, the system can track the flight in real time and will make the necessary adjustments and immediately notify the driver about any changes. The feature is already available in several airports across the region, such as in Bali, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Phuket, and will soon roll out to more airports in the coming months.
Meanwhile, GrabFood for One is a feature the company says it developed with merchant partners to respond to user requests for single-item or solo meals by offering these with no minimum spend and at a fixed delivery fee. GrabFood for One is now live and available to users in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Other features announced during the event include Shared Saver, which is basically a group order with strangers, where AI can detect when there are multiple orders for the same merchant in the area and invite users to join a live order, which brings the delivery fee down; Dine Out Discovery, which makes recommendations on what to order when you’re traveling to a new city or neighborhood based on cravings, cuisine, and recommendations from other users; and a new AI feature that detects large orders too heavy or bulky to be handled by one person, and either splitting the order into two riders, or finding a four-wheeler to complete and deliver the order.
During his speech, Tan underscored Grab’s commitment to use AI to solve real-world problems, using the phrase “AI with a Heart.” He began his speech by introducing MAI, the merchant assistant that doubles as an adviser to small or medium-scale food and restaurant partners.
“Mai is helpful, fast, and proactive,” Tan said. “She gives great advice. And most importantly, she cares. She has so much empathy for our partners. It’s no surprise our merchants love her.
“Here’s the twist—Mai is not human,” he added. “She’s our AI Merchant Assistant, a clear example of how AI can be applied to create truly game-changing benefits for our users and partners.”
Once again, Tan said he was fully committed to harnessing the benefits of AI, announcing that Grab as a company embarked on an ambitious initiative last year called our G/AI Sprint to accelerate the entire company’s embrace of AI. “Because you either disrupt, or you get disrupted,” Tan said. “So we chose to disrupt ourselves.”
Tan said the company is doubling down on its partnerships with leading AI companies, including OpenAI, and also announced Anthropic as a new strategic partner.
“By working with two of the world’s leading AI research organizations, we will push the boundaries of their models, and fine-tune them with our unique expertise and data insights, including those that only we have from serving millions of Southeast Asian user and partners every day.”
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report, as many as 40 percent of employers are planning to downsize their workforce due to AI, and about half of the employers surveyed in the report said they plan to re-orient their business in response to AI, with as much as 86 percent of employers expecting the technology and information processing to transform their business by 2030.
But Grab said it views AI as an “enhancer of our abilities,” and insists its efforts at upskilling its workers to better prepare them for the AI revolution is meant to be a win-win situation for everyone.
“Looking ahead, emerging technology will continue to open up new paths,” Tan said. “Some we can’t even imagine today. But the core essence of Grab—what Grab is really about—will always stay the same. We’re about driving innovation, even invention, that’s rooted in solving real, societal user problems.”
