Uber's chief product officer, the final live defense witness Monday in a bellwether trial over the company's sexual assault liability in multidistrict litigation involving thousands of cases, rejected claims that Uber dragged its feet on implementing some safety measures, while conceding "we have not done enough."

Monday marked the 14th day of trial in the case brought by plaintiff Jaylynn Dean, who alleges she was raped by her Uber driver in Arizona in 2023.

On the stand for the defense was Uber Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal, who described a sea change and heightened focus on safety when he joined the company in June 2017 — with new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi coming on board just weeks later to replace co-owner Travis Kalanick.

Kim Bueno of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, counsel for Uber, asked Kansal about his goals.

"Let's be frank: When you came into Uber in June of 2017, were you concerned about Uber's safety reputation, and did you want to improve it?" Bueno asked.

Kansal said the public wasn't aware of some safety measures Uber already had in place, such as phone anonymization that protected users' and drivers' privacy by masking their phone numbers, and a feature that allowed users to share their real-time ride with a third-party contact.

"And two, obviously, there were big gaps in terms of what features we should have," Kansal said.

So he set to work increasing awareness of the existing features and building new ones, he said.

Bueno showed Kansal an internal 2018 Uber document entitled "Stand For Safety." On one page was a statement that read, "We have outgrown the 'growth at all costs' model that guided us for years."

Bueno asked if Kansal felt that was true.

Kansal said it was hard for him to answer that because he didn't know how the company was operating before he came on board.

"I can only say that ever since I joined, safety was a very, very high priority," the Uber executive said.

Under Khosrowshahi's leadership, the company had collectively established safety as the No. 1 priority by the end of 2017, Kansal said. The safety push, however, has taken some time to get some features right, the Uber executive said.

Bueno showed an Uber document that said the company will not "rush new products and features to market" if they still posed safety concerns.

Kansal said he's held off on launching a product that's not ready.

Later, Bueno asked the executive about Uber's "women preferred" program, launched in 2025, which allows women riders to request women drivers and vice versa.

The lawyer showed him a September 2018 Uber document stating that the U.S. has a large enough female-driver population to make the program viable.

Kansal said there was still a supply concern since about 50% of riders are women, but only 15 to 20% are drivers.

There were also legal and policy risks, he said, including concerns about gender identity discrimination.

"If someone identifies themselves as a certain gender, whereas biologically, they may be a different gender, that can cause some confusion in terms of both the rider as well as the driver," Kansal said. There's also the potential for "bad actors," he said — men who claim they're women drivers in order to assault women passengers.

"We put a whole process around that to give [the rider] a way to be able to cancel," the Uber executive said.

In addition, there were hurdles with another safety idea — dashboard cameras — since many drivers didn't want them, there were technical issues with uploading the camera footage to Uber, and there were privacy issues, Kansal said. Uber eventually launched an audio-recording feature within its app, he noted.

"Just so we're clear, as of November 2023, in-app audio recording was available for both drivers and riders," Bueno asked.

Kansal said yes.

Uber also rolled out its safety risk assessed dispatch, or S-RAD, program: an internal, artificial intelligence-driven tool designed to flag potentially dangerous rides, Kansal told jurors.

A lawyer for Dean and the other MDL plaintiffs, Sarah London of Girard Sharp LLP, said the timing of when Uber finally launched its women-only program was suspicious. Even though in 2018 Uber said it had enough women drivers to launch such a product, it didn't start working on the program until 2024, she underscored.

Kansal reminded her of the "complexities" regarding the program discussed during his direct examination.

London pointed to an 2023 email exchange that included Kansal, then-Uber safety chief Gus Fuldner and Uber Communications Director Andrew Hasbun, in which Hasbun said, "We got a tip today that Lyft is planning to announce a women-driver preferred option as soon as next week."

Hasbun later noted in the exchange that Uber should be careful in its response to the news.

"I don't think using a legal argument as cover for us not doing a woman rider, picking woman driver feature will be a strong response, given the amount of companies who are willing to take the risk," Hasbun said in the email.

London pointed out that Hasbun also noted in the September 2023 email exchange that many of the cities Uber had thought about launching its women-only program in were "high risk" areas for sexual assault, including Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

"Mr. Kansal, has Uber ever told publicly to anyone who lives in Phoenix that Uber has identified it as a high-risk city for women?" London asked.

The executive said that's not something he'd know about.

Later, during redirect, Bueno asked Kansal if Uber had unnecessarily pumped the brakes on some safety measures.

"What's your response when somebody says that you and your team dragged your feet and didn't do enough to get these options available earlier?" Bueno asked.

Kansal said he disagreed with the characterization, noting he had outlined for the court the safety products Uber built over the past eight years he's been with the company.

"I first want to say we have not done enough. There's a lot more that we have to do," Kansal said. "But we have launched many, many industry firsts."

Bueno asked if Kansal continues to do everything he can to decrease sexual assault on the platform. The executive said yes.

Dean filed her suit in December 2023, weeks after the alleged sexual assault. According to her complaint, she had been out drinking with friends and had ordered a ride from Uber to get back to her hotel. After getting into the back seat of the vehicle, Dean said she laid down and closed her eyes. Mid-ride, the driver stopped the vehicle, got into the back seat and raped her, she said. She immediately reported the incident to Uber and the police, according to the complaint.

On Jan. 26, Dean took the stand and told jurors about the incident. On Monday, Uber showed jurors a video of Dean reporting the alleged assault about an hour after it happened to police officers, captured by one officer's body camera.

In the video, Dean said she was still "really drunk" after consuming a hard spritzer, half a canned piña colada cocktail and numerous shots earlier that evening.

"He pulled over … and raped me," Dean told the officers in the video. "He got on top of me ... I really don't remember much ... There was penetration ... like vaginally."

Jurors on Monday also heard a tape-recorded conversation between the driver and a police detective. The driver said Dean was drunk when she got into his vehicle and had made the first move by grabbing him between the legs.

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, who is overseeing the MDL, is presiding over the trial in Phoenix, which began Jan. 13. In pretrial proceedings last month, the judge ruled Uber can't introduce evidence that the driver wasn't criminally charged.

The judge also rejected Uber's request to postpone the trial, rebuffing the company's assertion that the jury would be tainted by a commercial from a plaintiffs' counsel advocacy group that claims Uber refused to make safety improvements.

A state court bellwether trial was held in September in San Francisco over similar allegations. The jury held in that case that Uber was negligent with respect to safety measures it took to protect a passenger who says she was sexually assaulted by her driver, but the company isn't liable for damages because its negligence wasn't a substantial factor in causing her harm.

On Monday, Uber filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law in Dean's case, arguing "no reasonable jury could find Uber liable on this trial record."

Closing arguments for the trial are scheduled for Tuesday.

Dean and the plaintiffs in the MDL are represented by co-lead counsel Sarah R. London of Girard Sharp LLP, Rachel B. Abrams of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise LLP, and Roopal P. Luhana of Chaffin Luhana LLP.

Uber Technologies Inc., and its subsidiaries Rasier LLC and Rasier-Ca LLC are represented by Laura Vartain Horn, Kim Bueno, Allison M. Brown, Tara L. Blake and Jessica Davidson of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and Sabrina H. Strong and Jonathan P. Schneller of O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

The case is Jaylynn Dean v. Uber Technologies Inc. et al., case number 2:25-cv-04276, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

The MDL is In re: Uber Technologies Inc., Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, case number 3:23-md-03084, in the U.S. District Court for the California Northern District.