Grab says AI helped it ship products 30% faster as Southeast Asia's super-app raises its annual forecast
The ride-hailing and food delivery giant posted its best-ever quarter, with revenue up 22% and operating profit up 186%, and it credits internal AI tools for a big chunk of the speed gains.
Key points
- Grab's Q2 2025 revenue reached $997 million, a 22% rise year on year.
- Operating profit hit $19 million for the quarter, up 186% compared with the same period a year earlier.
- Rides grew 28% year on year in Q2 2025, which CFO Peter Oey called one of the highest increases the company has seen.
- Grab raised its full-year 2025 revenue outlook to $4.10 billion to $4.15 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $4.04 billion to $4.10 billion.
- AI tools inside the company now help Grab build and release new product features more than 30% faster than before.
Grab, the Southeast Asian company best known for its ride-hailing app and food delivery service, just had its strongest quarter on record, and it says artificial intelligence, the technology that powers tools like ChatGPT, is a big part of why.
CFO Peter Oey told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia that AI is now woven into both what customers see in the app and how the company's engineers work day to day. The practical result: Grab's teams are shipping new features and fixes more than 30% faster than they used to. Faster product updates tend to cost less to produce, which shows up directly in the profit figures.
What do the numbers actually show?
The results are strong across the board. Revenue for the three months ending June 2025 came in at $997 million, up 22% on the same quarter a year ago. Operating profit, the money left after running costs, landed at $19 million, a 186% jump.
| Metric | Q2 2024 | Q2 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ~$817 m | $997 m | +22% |
| Operating profit | ~$7 m | $19 m | +186% |
| Rides (year-on-year growth) | baseline | +28% | highest in recent history |
| Full-year revenue outlook | $4.04 b to $4.10 b | $4.10 b to $4.15 b | raised |
| Full-year EBITDA outlook | $700 m to $720 m | $720 m to $740 m | raised |
Shares rose nearly 5% in after-hours trading following the results.
What does this mean for customers?
For people who use Grab to book a car or order lunch, faster internal development should translate to a better app experience: fewer bugs, new features arriving more quickly, and a company with more money to invest in keeping prices competitive.
Oey said demand remained strong into July, and that Grab's financial services arm, which offers loans and insurance to users across the region, is at a point where it is beginning to scale meaningfully.
Grab is also working to close its purchase of Delivery Hero's foodpanda food-delivery business in Taiwan, first reported by CNBC. Oey confirmed the deal with Taiwanese regulators is still in progress and that Grab hopes to wrap it up before the end of 2025. The goal, he said, is to bring products that Southeast Asian users already rely on into the Taiwan market.
Common questions
Is Grab available outside Southeast Asia?
Grab currently operates in eight Southeast Asian countries. Its planned acquisition of foodpanda's Taiwan business would mark its first move into a market outside that region.
How is AI actually helping Grab make money?
Grab uses AI tools internally so engineers can write and test software faster. Building things more quickly costs less, which improves profit margins. The company also uses AI in the customer-facing app, though it has not detailed every specific feature.
