Modern life demands constantly switching hats. One minute you might be coordinating family schedules, the next you’re deep in work emails, then perhaps grabbing a quick solo meal or navigating an unfamiliar part of the city — often all within the same day.
(Update, April 15: From mapping cameras to smart food lockers, we take a look at some of Grab’s hardware!)
Grab, Southeast Asia’s ubiquitous super-app, understands this daily juggle. Its signature green is a constant presence on our phones and part of many daily routines. But at its inaugural GrabX showcase in Singapore this week, the company signaled its ambition to play an even larger role in our day-to-day activities. Under the “For Every You” banner, Grab unveiled a slate of new features, powered by AI but aiming for the heart, designed thoughtfully to make everyday tasks easier for the different roles we manage.
Grab Group CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan framed the push with a philosophy dubbed “AI-First with Heart.” The idea? Leverage the power of artificial intelligence — from large language models or LLMs to predictive algorithms — but never forget the human need behind the tech. It’s less about chasing buzzwords and more about “harnessing the latest technologies to build solutions that address real problems and serve real needs, for everyday people,” Tan said. It’s an ambitious plan to evolve Grab from a transactional necessity to an intuitive companion, making the platform more integrated into users’ daily activities.
Grab aims for its app to be integrated into more aspects of its users’ daily routines
So, what does this mean for the average Grab user navigating the chaos of Metro Manila, the streets of Kuala Lumpur, or the alleys of Jakarta? Let’s break down the new toolkit Grab is rolling out.
Taming the family frenzy
Family life is organized chaos. Picture this: Your teenager needs to get from school to their swimming class across town, but you’re chained to your desk finishing a report. Enter Grab for Family | Teens. Launching starting May, this feature lets parents link their account to their 13-to-17-year-old’s, allowing the teen to book rides independently or allowing parents to book rides for him or her, with extra safety layers baked in. We’re talking prioritized assignment to top-rated drivers, mandatory PIN verification between driver and teen before the ride starts ensuring the teen doesn’t hop into the wrong car, and real-time trip monitoring for parental peace of mind.
Grab is even teasing a future enhancement using Generative AI for AudioProtect, aiming to detect dangerous situations within the car in real-time for immediate intervention — a potentially powerful, if slightly Orwellian, safety net. It’s Grab acknowledging that teen independence is crucial, but parental anxiety is real.
Then there’s the universal family challenge: feeding the horde. Organizing that big Sunday lunch often involves hefty food orders. Grab says its improved large-order experience uses a tailored LLM to analyze your cart in real-time, analyzing data across a staggering 175 million food variations. If it estimates the order is too bulky for a standard motorbike delivery partner, it first tries to dispatch a car. No car available? The system cleverly splits the order, assigns it to two riders, and orchestrates their dispatch to ensure both halves arrive closely together. No more lukewarm adobo because half the order took a scenic detour. It’s a behind-the-scenes logistical ballet, aiming to make large-scale feasting seamless.
Going solo doesn’t mean missing out
We all have those solo moments. It’s 9 p.m. on a Wednesday, you’re finally logging off after a marathon workday, and the thought of cooking is the last thing you want to do. Ordering for one can be a pain — hitting minimum order values often means an unwanted extra order of lumpia, and delivery fees sting more on smaller checks. GrabFood for One tackles this head-on. Available now in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, it offers a curated list of single-serving, affordable meals with no minimum spend and a fixed low delivery fee. It’s a simple, practical solution to make solo dining via delivery less of a compromise.
But what about those smaller, impulse cravings? It’s 3 p.m., and that specialty coffee from across the mall is calling your name. Ordering just one feels wasteful. Enter Shared Saver, one of Grab’s more novel solutions announced at GrabX. Think GrabShare, but applied to your food or drink delivery.
For the solo ‘You.’ Don’t have anyone to share your order with? Here’s an upcoming feature for you: Shared Saver!
Kicking off as a pilot in Singapore starting this April, with other city pilots planned by June, the app uses AI matchmaking to spot multiple nearby users ordering from the same merchant, creating an opportunity for a shared delivery. When these shared opportunities pop up, you can discover and join the live “group” order — often notified by a countdown timer indicating how long you have to opt-in. It’s about anonymously piggybacking with strangers in your vicinity to slash the delivery cost and bypass those small-order fees. You can even try initiating a shared order yourself, hoping others nearby will join your delivery convoy. It’s a clever system aimed at making those small indulgences more economical.
Making exploration easier, near and far
Whether you’re navigating the sprawling terminals of an international airport or just trying to find a decent dinner spot back home in Poblacion, Makati, Grab wants to be your co-pilot. Landing after a red-eye flight into the controlled chaos of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport can be disorienting, especially when faced with the usual scramble for transport. Grab’s new Advance Booking (Airport Pickup) feature aims to tackle that pre-arranged ride anxiety head-on, offering a more predictable and reliable service.
It lets you book your Grab ride before you even leave home. The system then tracks your flight status in real-time, dynamically adjusting your assigned driver’s schedule based on your actual arrival — accounting for delays or early landings. Theoretically, your ride should be ready and waiting near the arrival bay around the time you clear customs, removing that major first hurdle of any trip. The goal is to let you walk out, find your driver, and focus on starting your actual trip without the usual hassle.
This isn’t just a concept; the service is already operational today at several key regional airports known to Filipino travelers, including Bali’s Ngurah Rai (DPS), Jakarta’s Soekarno–Hatta (CGK), Yogyakarta (YIA), Surabaya’s Juanda (SUB), Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 1 (KUL), Phuket (HKT), and Singapore’s Seletar Airport (XSP). Grab confirms more major city airports are planned in the coming months. Hopefully, NAIA gets officially added to that list soon, later this year, as promised.
For the explorer ‘You.’ Removing the immediate hassle of finding transportation right after you land
Closer to home, or when exploring a new city, finding the right place to eat can involve frantic scrolling through multiple apps. Leveraging its mapping prowess, Grab is launching Dine Out Discovery. This feature, powered by GrabMaps, aims to be an intuitive way to find restaurants and deals around you. You can filter by cuisine, price, ratings, popularity, and even walkable distance. Tapping a spot reveals menus, reviews, photos, and opening hours. In some markets — initially Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, then the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam by May — you’ll even be able to make table reservations directly. It’s Grab integrating its transport and food knowledge into a discovery engine.
And for the frequent regional jet-setters, the Grab Travel Pass bundles vouchers for airport rides, transport, food delivery, and dining across Southeast Asia, purchasable before your trip for added convenience and potential savings.
Get in early, shape the future
Underpinning all this is Grab’s acknowledgment that tech is never truly finished. The company launched the Grab Early Access Programme, inviting users — the self-proclaimed “FOMO kings and queens” — to test beta features and provide feedback. It’s a direct line for early adopters to influence product development, reinforcing the idea that Grab’s evolution is a collaborative process. Interested? You may sign up here.
The road ahead: An AI companion with heart?
GrabX wasn’t just about isolated features; it painted a picture of a platform striving to become an indispensable, almost predictive, part of our daily lives. It’s doubling down on AI, not just for efficiency, but to anticipate and cater to the complex, shifting needs of millions across Southeast Asia. As Grab chief product officer Philipp Kandal put it, the goal is “to remove friction and open up new ways for our users to focus on what truly matters, whatever role they might be playing.”
The ambition is clear: Grab doesn’t just want to give you a ride or deliver your lunch. It wants to understand the context of your day. Are you a stressed parent, a hungry solo worker, or an adventurous tourist? It wants to offer the right tool, at the right time, with a blend of AI smarts and, hopefully, a human touch. It wants to provide new solutions “for every you.” Whether it fully delivers on this “AI-First with Heart” promise across such a diverse range of services remains to be seen, but Grab is certainly betting big on becoming the ultimate life app for Southeast Asia.
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