Starting from simple anilines and ester arylpropiolates, an efficient one-pot synthesis of 2-arylindole-3-carboxylate derivatives has been developed through copper-mediated sequential hydroamination and cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) reaction. The initial hydroamination of anilines to ester arylpropiolates in benzene can proceed in a stereoselective manner to give ester (Z)-3-(arylamino)acrylates