Uber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’
Uber president Andrew Macdonald says it's 'hard to draw a line' between AI spending and deliverable features, as the company reportedly exhausted its annual AI budget four months into 2026.
Article intelligence
Key points
- Uber exhausted its annual AI budget four months into 2026
- President questions direct link between AI spending and user features
- R&D spending reached $3.4 billion in 2025, up 9%
- CEO says fewer human hires offset AI investment costs
Why it matters
This matters because uber exhausted its annual AI budget four months into 2026.
Technical impact
May affect model selection, inference cost, product capability, and evaluation benchmarks.
After reportedly exhausting its annual AI budget just four months into 2026, Uber is now questioning whether it’s actually seeing meaningful returns on its investments. In an interview with Rapid Response, Uber president and chief operating officer Andrew Macdonald said the company isn’t seeing a connection between rising token consumption for Claude Code and more useful features being delivered to consumers. ”That link is not there yet, right? I think maybe implicitly there is more that is getting shipped, but it’s very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, ‘Okay, now we’re actually producing 25 percent more useful consumer features,’” said Macdonald. “I think over the coming quarters and years, maybe that will become clearer, but I think today it’s hard, even if some of the underlying metrics are trending in a really astronomical direction.” Uber spent $3.4 billion on research and development efforts in 2025, 9 percent more than it had spent the previous year. Earlier this month, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company was making up for its increasing AI investments by hiring fewer human employees. “We’re going to have to start talking about token consumption and the associated cost versus headcount,” said Macdonald. “So if you’re not actually able to draw a direct line to how much useful features and functionality you’re shipping to your users, that trade becomes harder to justify.”