Uber blows through its AI budget in 1 quarter

Uber exhausted its entire 2026 AI coding budget in just four months after incentivizing employee adoption, yet company executives acknowledge difficulty linking increased AI spending to measurable consumer benefits. The situation highlights a broader enterprise AI challenge: while per-unit AI costs are falling, overall spending rises due to increased usage and the higher token consumption of agentic AI models, making it harder for companies to justify ROI. Other major tech companies like Microsoft face similar pressures, with industry forecasts showing AI agent software spending projected to reach $207 billion by 2026.