Uber Burns Through Its Annual AI Budget in Just a Few Months

An unexpected turn at Uber: the money allocated for AI for the entire 2026 year was already spent by April. It's all due to the introduction of Anthropic's Claude Code tool. Initially, 5,000 engineers got access, and then almost the entire team began actively using AI for code writing.

As a result, 95% of developers regularly work with neural networks, and up to 70% of the code is created with their help

The problem turned out to be the cost: the company pays for each request. Active developers can 'burn' up to $2,000 per month, and inside Uber they even held competitions for AI usage. As a result, expenses spiraled out of control, but no one is going to stop