BlaBlaCar is set to enter 20 new countries this year, using artificial intelligence to drive a faster, cheaper, and more localized rollout than its previous manual market launches. The Paris-based carpooling and bus platform, already present in 22 countries, will nearly double its footprint by deploying AI tools across translation, customer support, route matching, fraud detection, and dynamic pricing—eliminating much of the need for large on-the-ground teams.

The expansion targets Latin America (including Chile, Peru, and Colombia), Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines), Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria) and parts of Africa. In many of these regions, BlaBlaCar will operate solely through its BlaBlaCar Daily commute service or long-distance bus marketplace, rather than the traditional intercity carpooling model, adapting its offer to local mobility patterns.

CEO Nicolas Brusson explained that the shift to AI-driven launches reduces the time to open a new market from 12–18 months to just a few weeks. “We’ve built a common core of AI models that can be rapidly fine-tuned with local data—language, payment habits, traffic patterns—allowing us to replicate our value proposition across very diverse geographies without proportional increases in headcount,” he said. The company’s proprietary AI, originally developed for member verification and trust features, now also powers real-time translation of profiles and messages into over 30 languages, dynamic route suggestion algorithms that learn from local road networks, and automated moderation tools that detect suspicious behavior.

The move comes after BlaBlaCar secured a €100 million credit line in 2023 to fund growth, and follows its recent acquisitions of bus marketplace Busfor in Eastern Europe and carpooling app Klaxit in France. It also marks a strategic response to rising competition from regional players like Ola in India and Didi in Latin America, where carpooling has seen a post-pandemic resurgence. By relying on AI, BlaBlaCar can enter markets with lean teams (often just a country manager and a few local operators) and scale quickly while keeping customer acquisition costs low.

The platform already hosts 100 million members worldwide and facilitated over 100 million trips in 2023. Projections for the new markets suggest an additional 15–20 million yearly trips within two years. However, analysts note that regulatory hurdles, local payment integration, and cultural acceptance of carpooling remain challenges that AI alone cannot solve. BlaBlaCar will continue to work with local partners for marketing and driver recruitment, and plans to double its machine learning team to 200 engineers by year-end. The expansion, if successful, would cement BlaBlaCar’s position as the world’s largest shared mobility platform outside of ride-hailing.

L’article BlaBlaCar s’appuie sur l’IA pour se lancer dans 20 nouveaux pays est apparu en premier sur Maddyness - Le média pour comprendre l'économie de demain.