After spending all its AI money, Uber CTO says the era of tokenmaxxing is ending
Back in April, Uber revealed it had already exhausted its entire 2026 budget for AI. The company's AI coding costs had surged faster than expected
Back in April, Uber revealed it had already exhausted its entire 2026 budget for AI. The company's AI coding costs had surged faster than expected as Claude Code adoption surged. Uber later reportedly capped AI usage as it looked to rein in costs. Now, eight months into the year, Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga says the company is no longer burning through money on AI. Instead, Uber has become more efficient, using AI tokens more wisely while keeping costs under control. Naga in fact calls this a sign that the "tokenmaxxing" era is beginning to come to an end. Read Full Story In a post shared on X following Uber's second-quarter earnings, CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga said the company's AI strategy is shifting away from consuming more AI tokens towards using them more efficiently. "As our CFO mentioned at earnings today, we're seeing some very interesting trends on AI costs," Naga wrote.
"I think it's another signal that we're coming to the end of the so-called 'tokenmaxxing' era." Naga says Uber is now seeing a very different trend. Even though the number of employees using advanced AI tools has more than quadrupled since the start of the year, the company's AI costs he reveals are coming down. "You might expect costs to rise as adoption accelerates. We've seen the opposite," he wrote. “The next phase, whatever we call it, will not be characterized by who spends the most tokens, but about how people use them as efficiently as possible.” As our CFO @_balaji_km mentioned at earnings today, we’re seeing some very interesting trends on AI costs. I think it’s another signal that we’re coming to the end of the so-called ‘tokenmaxxing’ era. Here’s what’s been happening behind the scenes. Since the beginning of the— Praveen Neppalli (@praveenTweets) August 5, 2026 Uber says it controlled AI spending by being efficient Naga reveals that the lower AI costs aren't the result of restricting access to AI.
Instead, Uber has focused on helping employees use AI more efficiently. The company has reduced unnecessary AI requests, improved prompt reuse, given engineers better visibility into their AI usage and spending, and tested different AI models to find the most cost-effective option for each task. "The next phase, whatever we call it, will not be characterised by who spends the most tokens, but by how people use them as efficiently as possible," he added. Naga's comments come months after Uber revealed during its first yearly call that it had already exhausted its 2026 budget for Anthropic's Claude Code following a sharp rise in AI adoption across its engineering teams. The incident also became an eye-opener for the tech industry, exposing the true financial cost of integrating AI deeply into daily developer workflows. It also led companies like Uber and Microsoft to rethink whether higher AI spending actually translates into better productivity.
The BriefWire