Uber caps AI coding tool spending after exhausting its full-year budget within four months
Uber introduced monthly limits on AI coding tools after exhausting its full-year AI budget early
Uber's CTO said rising use of Claude Code helped exhaust the company's annual AI budget
Uber Caps AI Tool Usage After Exhausting Yearly Budget In Just 4 Months
The limit puts a cap of $1,500 per month on token spending for agentic coding software
Uber X
Summary
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Uber has imposed a $1,500 monthly cap on employee spending for AI coding tools after burning through its full-year AI budget in just four months.
With 95% of engineers using tools like Claude Code and Cursor, and around 10% of the company's code now generated by AI agents, the company is reassessing its AI strategy amid rising costs and growing dependence on agentic coding software.
The ride-hailing platform has placed a monthly spending limit on its employees' usage of AI coding tools after the company burned through its full-year artificial intelligence budget during the first four months of the year, the ride share giant confirmed to Bloomberg.
Company CTO Praveen Neppali Naga told The Information last month that the company was "back to the drawing board" after exhausting its full-year AI budget following an increase in AI-powered coding tools, particularly Claude Code.
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AI Usage Surges at Uber
The limit puts a cap of $1,500 per month on token spending for agentic coding software such as Cursor and Anthropic's Claude Code. Though the spending on each tool is tracked independently, employees can monitor it through an internal dashboard.
During the first-quarter earnings call of 2026, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi revealed that around 10% of the company's code is now written and submitted by AI agents, while Neppali, in an X (formerly twitter) post, revealed that 95% of its engineers use AI tools every month.
According to reports, Uber's announcement comes shortly after Microsoft asked employees to wind down their use of Claude Code and shift to GitHub Copilot CLI, with June 30 set as the last date for using the tool after it was rolled out to employees in December last year.
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AI Coding Tool Shift
Microsoft's instructions to shift from Claude Code to GitHub Copilot CLI follow its announcement of a pricing restructuring in April.
The company overhauled GitHub Copilot's pricing structure from a flat-tier model to a usage-based model, where costs are calculated based on token consumption. The new policy provides Copilot Pro users with AI credits worth $10 and Copilot Pro+ users with AI credits worth $39 per month.
However, some GitHub users have expressed frustration over the decision on social media, with some exploring alternatives such as DeepSeek and Codex for higher usage limits.