The first major company to consider halting its AI spending spree has emerged. The COO of ride-hailing app Uber recently stated that many companies are currently frantically implementing AI internally, burning through tokens, but as expenses increase, they are finding the results are not as expected. In April of this year, Uber exhausted its annual Claude code budget and is slowing down hiring to cover AI costs. The COO admitted that high AI investment has not translated into greater results. Currently, the company is re-evaluating the return on investment of its internal AI use, moving from the AI spending spree phase to a more serious cost-benefit analysis phase.