Firms Cap AI Tool Usage as Costs Outpace Returns
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- Uber capped employee AI usage after burning through its annual Claude Code budget in four months, with COO Andrew Macdonald saying the spending was "harder to justify" given no clear link between token use and useful consumer features.
- Amazon shut down an internal token leaderboard after employees gamed it with throwaway tasks to climb the rankings, with an executive telling staff: "Please don't use AI just for the sake of using AI."
- GitHub moved Copilot to usage-based billing as part of its push for a "sustainable" business, shocking developers who were suddenly confronted with the true cost of heavy AI usage.
- Bain surveyed 951 large companies and found AI savings falling well below projections even as most firms planned to spend more, concluding: "The technology worked. The value didn't arrive."
- Sam Altman acknowledged the concerns, calling whether AI spending will show up in revenue "the most fair criticism" of the current moment.
- The Nasdaq dropped 4.2% — its worst day in over a year — and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 10.3%, its worst day in over six years, partly triggered by Broadcom's failure to raise its longer-term AI revenue outlook despite reporting explosive AI growth.
Why it matters: The companies sounding this alarm are AI's most aggressive early adopters — even firms best positioned to make AI work are struggling to justify the spend. That dynamic was on display Friday: Broadcom's failure to raise its AI revenue outlook helped drive a 10.3% semiconductor index rout and a 4.2% Nasdaq drop, the worst day in over a year.
