Uber caps employee spending on artificial intelligence after going over budget in four months

Artificial intelligence is It gets expensiveAnd some Companies are shrinking On usage in an attempt to reduce costs. This group includes Uber, which recently set internal usage caps as a way to reduce its costly spending on artificial intelligence.

Bloomberg Reports The company has instituted a new rule that sets a monthly limit of $1,500 per employee and per proxy coding tool, including Anthropic’s Claude Code or Cursor. Usage can be tracked via an internal dashboard that every employee can access, although — in some cases — caps can be exceeded with permission, the company says.

This news probably isn’t too surprising, because back in April, the company’s CTO made the announcement I revealed it The ride-sharing company exhausted its entire annual AI budget within four months. This appears to have happened after Uber encouraged employees to use AI “as much as possible,” and even ranked their internal use competitively on its internal leaderboards, The Information. I mentioned previously.

Uber CEO Andrew McDonald, too Recently questioned about the impact of AI on productivity, noting during an appearance on the podcast that it’s “very difficult to draw a line” between the use of AI and new consumer features.

Uber’s downsizing raises a broader issue the tech industry is currently facing: As companies pour money into AI, where exactly is the return on investment? In fact, the return on investment of AI so far has remained flat A largely theoretical phenomenon Which everyone hopes will eventually come true – although some companies are clearly feeling a little anxious while they wait.