Uber caps employee AI spending at $1,500 per tool after exhausting annual budget in four months

Uber caps employee AI spending after blowing through budget in four months

AI is getting expensive, and some companies are cutting back on usage in an attempt to moderate costs. That cohort includes Uber, which recently instituted internal usage caps as a way to cut down on its exorbitant AI spend. Bloomberg reports that the company has instituted a new rule that places a monthly $1,500 cap per employee and per agentic coding tool, including Anthropic's Claude Code or Cursor. The usage is trackable via an internal dashboard that each employee has access to, although -- in certain cases -- the caps can be exceeded with permission, the company says. The news is perhaps not too surprising, since, in April, the company's CTO revealed that the ride-sharing giant had blown through its entire annual AI budget in a matter of four months. That appears to have occurred after Uber encouraged staff to use AI "as much as possible" and even ranked their internal usage competitively on internal leader boards, The Information previously reported. Uber's CEO, Andrew Macdonald, also recently cast doubt on AI's productivity impact, noting during a podcast appearance that "it's very hard to draw a line" between AI usage and new consumer features. Uber's cutback raises a broader issue that the tech industry is currently facing: As enterprises pour money into AI, where exactly is the return on investment? Indeed, AI ROI has so far remained a largely theoretical phenomenon that everybody hopes will eventually materialize -- although some companies are obviously getting a little restless while they wait.

Uber caps monthly employee AI spending at $1,500 per tool amid soaring costs By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Uber Technologies Inc. has introduced spending limits on artificial intelligence tools used by its employees to control costs, after the company blew past its AI budget set for the entire year, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The rideshare company now limits all staff members to $1,500 in monthly token spending per AI coding tool. The caps apply separately to each tool, meaning spending on one does not affect the budget for another. The restrictions, put in place in recent months, only cover agentic coding software such as Cursor or Anthropic PBC's Claude Code. Follow the story as it unfolds on InvestingPro -- get 50% off now. Each employee can monitor their usage through a dashboard that tracks activity across different tools. The company has created a process allowing workers to request permission to exceed their standard limit. "We think this is all a pretty straightforward way to responsibly encourage agentic AI adoption and experimentation at scale across the company," the company's spokesperson reportedly told Bloomberg. Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga told the Information in April that Uber had already used up its full-year AI budget. Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said last month that approximately 10% of the company's code was submitted and built by AI agents, with the legal and marketing teams increasing their usage. Last month, Uber stated it would slow its hiring pace compared to initial plans for the year due to productivity gains from internal AI use. Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macdonald said on the Rapid Response podcast last month that it remains unclear whether increased AI tool usage is leading to more new features for Uber's customers. "It's very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and 'OK, now we're actually producing like 25% more useful consumer features,'" he said.