The price of AI is high, and some companies are cutting back on usage to keep costs down. This group also includes Uber, which recently imposed internal usage caps as a way to reduce exorbitant AI spending.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the company has instituted new rules that cap the amount of money per employee and agent coding tools, including Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cursor, at $1,500 per month. Usage can be tracked through an internal dashboard that each employee has access to, but the company says it can exceed the limit in some cases with permission.
This news may not be all that surprising, as the company’s CTO revealed in April that the ride-hailing giant burnt through its annual AI budget in just four months. This appears to have happened after Uber encouraged employees to use AI “as much as possible” and competitively ranked internal usage on internal leaderboards, The Information previously reported.
Uber Chief Operating Officer Andrew MacDonald also recently questioned AI’s impact on productivity, saying during a podcast appearance that it’s “very hard to draw the line” between the use of AI and new consumer capabilities.
Uber’s cuts raise broader issues currently facing the tech industry. The question is, as companies pour money into AI, what is the return on investment? In fact, the ROI of AI has so far remained largely a theoretical phenomenon that we all hope will eventually become a reality. However, while waiting, some businesses are clearly getting a little restless.
