Feb 6 (Reuters) - Lyft ( LYFT ) said on Thursday it has

tied up with Amazon ( AMZN ) and Alphabet-backed

startup Anthropic to roll out artificial intelligence tools for

the ride-hailing platform's customer care operations.

The company said it has been using Anthropic's Claude AI

model, through Amazon's ( AMZN ) Bedrock generative AI platform, which

has helped reduce the average customer service resolution time

by 87% and is resolving thousands of customer requests each day.

While the use of advanced AI in customer service operations

has fueled worries over job loss in the industry, Lyft ( LYFT ) said

there would continue to be a need for human customer support

agents.

The company said it was working to first try to resolve

customer issues using the AI assistant and then guiding them to

a human if there is a need for further assistance.

"We see AI as an opportunity to improve the quality and

effectiveness of our operations, not to reduce headcount," said

Jason Vogrinec, executive vice president, platforms at Lyft ( LYFT ).

According to some industry experts, an AI model's ability to

make up information or produce incorrect outputs can hinder its

ability to fully replace a human customer service agent.

Issues such as safety, deactivations, fraud and other

complexities will continue to be analyzed and resolved by human

agents, Lyft ( LYFT ) said.

The partnership between Lyft ( LYFT ) and Anthropic will enable

future collaborations on tools that will help both riders and

drivers, it said. The AI startup will train Lyft's ( LYFT ) engineers on

the technology.

Lyft ( LYFT ) is set to report its quarterly results after markets

close on Tuesday.