Uber limits employee spending on AI tools after budget runs out early

In short: Uber is putting monthly spending limits on some AI tools used by employees after the company reportedly spent its yearly AI budget in just four months.

What happened

Uber has introduced new internal limits on how much employees can spend using certain AI tools, according to a report cited by TechCrunch.

Bloomberg reported that Uber set a $1,500 per month cap per employee and per “agentic coding tool” like Anthropic’s Claude Code or Cursor. An agentic coding tool is an AI helper that can write and change software code for you (like a very fast assistant that follows instructions and drafts the work). Uber employees can see their usage in an internal dashboard, and in some cases they can go over the cap if they get permission.

The move follows earlier reports that Uber had already used up its entire annual AI budget in about four months. The company had reportedly encouraged employees to use AI “as much as possible” and even tracked usage on internal leaderboards, like a contest.

Uber leadership has also questioned how easy it is to prove that AI spending leads directly to better products. Uber executive Andrew Macdonald said on a podcast that it is “very hard to draw a line” between AI use and new consumer features.

Why it matters

This is a simple sign of a bigger issue many companies are facing. AI tools can come with usage-based costs (like a utility bill that rises the more you use it), and it is not always clear what a company is getting back for that money. For regular people, this can affect how quickly companies roll out AI-powered features, how much they invest in AI, and whether they pass costs on through higher prices.

Source: TechCrunch AI