Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an earnings call that Uber was slowing hiring to counter its investments in AI

Reddit r/singularity 05/26/26, 11:43 AM News

uber ai-investment cost-cutting hiring-freeze earnings-call tech-spending roi-concerns

Summary

Uber's CEO and COO express caution about AI spending, noting that increased AI usage does not clearly translate to better customer outcomes, leading to slowed hiring and tighter budget controls.

AI has always been about, smart man plus AI combo. This combo works better if you are AI heavy on tasks. And apparently, uber learnt it the hard way. Their COO is basically saying the AI spending hype inside big tech isn’t clearly paying off yet Andrew Macdonald said Uber is burning through a lot of money on AI tools and “tokens” (the computing units behind models like Claude), and even blew its 2026 budget early He said if engineers are using more AI doesn’t mean Uber is shipping better or more useful features at the same rate. He said it’s really hard to draw a straight line between “more AI usage” and “better customer outcomes. At the same time, Uber’s leadership is still investing in AI, but they’re starting to get more cautious, like slowing hiring and questioning costs more seriously Looks like lack of direction burns the resources faster, thoughts?

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