{"id":863,"date":"2026-05-26T10:38:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=863"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:38:40","slug":"uber-ai-investment-hard-to-justify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=863","title":{"rendered":"Uber president says AI spending is getting \u2018harder to justify\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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After reportedly exhausting its annual AI budget just four months into 2026, Uber is now questioning whether it\u2019s actually seeing meaningful returns on its investments. In an interview with Rapid Response<\/em><\/a>, Uber president and chief operating officer Andrew Macdonald said the company isn\u2019t seeing a connection between rising token consumption for Claude Code and more useful features being delivered to consumers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThat link is not there yet, right? I think maybe implicitly there is more that is getting shipped, but it\u2019s very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, \u2018Okay, now we\u2019re actually producing 25 percent more useful consumer features,\u2019\u201d said Macdonald. \u201cI think over the coming quarters and years, maybe that will become clearer, but I think today it\u2019s hard, even if some of the underlying metrics are trending in a really astronomical direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to start talking about token consumption and the associated cost versus headcount,\u201d said Macdonald. \u201cSo if you\u2019re not actually able to draw a direct line to how much useful features and functionality you\u2019re shipping to your users, that trade becomes harder to justify.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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After reportedly exhausting its annual AI budget just four months into 2026, Uber is now questioning whether it\u2019s 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\u2019t seeing a connection between rising token consumption for Claude Code and more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[31,135,46,366,47,367],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-ai","tag-business","tag-news","tag-ride-sharing","tag-transportation","tag-uber"],"yoast_head":"\nUber president says AI spending is getting \u2018harder to justify\u2019 - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\ufeffThere\u2019s no clear connection between AI usage and productivity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=863\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Uber president says AI spending is getting \u2018harder to justify\u2019 - 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