Uber CTO Says Thousands of Engineers Now Use Advanced AI Tools as Company Cuts Cost Per Token: 'The Next Phase' Is About Using Tokens More Efficiently

Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) says the next phase of AI will focus less on consuming more tokens and more on improving efficiency, reducing costs and maximizing value.

Uber Lowers AI Cost Per Token

On Wednesday, Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli said the company has seen a major increase in employees using advanced AI tools while simultaneously lowering its cost per token.

"As our CFO @_balaji_km mentioned at earnings today, we’re seeing some very interesting trends on AI costs," he wrote

He added, "I think it’s another signal that we’re coming to the end of the so-called ‘tokenmaxxing’ era."

Neppalli said Uber has more than quadrupled the number of people using frontier AI tools since the beginning of the year, with thousands of engineers using AI daily.

Despite the increased adoption, he said the company’s cost per token has declined.

He attributed the improvement to engineering-focused optimizations rather than restricting access to AI tools.

Uber has improved its prompt caching and reuse systems to reduce input token spending, adjusted default model settings and context sizes, and provided engineers with real-time visibility into AI usage and costs.

The company is also testing open-weight AI models and selecting different models based on specific use cases.

"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," Neppalli said.

AI Race Accelerates as Engineers Adapt

Earlier, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said AI may have entered a recursive self-improvement cycle, allowing systems to help build more advanced models, accelerate breakthroughs and reduce costs.

He said the trend could represent a step toward the AI singularity.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted AI could soon handle most software engineering tasks, noting that some engineers are already using AI to generate and edit code.

AI pioneer Andrew Ng warned that engineers who fail to adopt AI tools could fall behind, saying developers who combine technical experience with AI skills will be better positioned as the industry evolves.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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