Uber Caps Employee AI Spending at $1,500 Monthly After Budget Blowout

Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) has imposed a $1,500 monthly cap per employee on usage of agentic coding tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cursor, aiming to rein in runaway artificial intelligence costs. The restriction, implemented in early June 2026, follows the company’s disclosure that it exhausted its entire annual AI budget in the first four months of the year. Employees can track their spending on an internal dashboard and may exceed the limit with managerial approval. The move marks a sharp reversal from earlier this year, when Uber urged staff to use AI extensively and ranked usage on internal leaderboards, according to The Information. Chief Technology Officer revealed the budget overrun in April, prompting the clampdown. CEO Andrew Macdonald separately expressed skepticism about AI’s measurable impact on productivity, saying it remains difficult to trace new consumer features directly to AI use. The pullback underscores a growing industry concern: despite heavy investment, clear return on AI spending remains elusive.