Uber's CTO Just Blew His Entire Claude Code 2026 Budget - But He’s Still Hiring Engineers.
Uber's CTO has exceeded their entire 2026 Claude Code budget due to widespread AI adoption, with 11% of code updates now written by AI agents. The company continues aggressive hiring despite budget overruns, while competitors like Anthropic and Google release new AI development tools.
Summary
Uber's CTO Nepali Naga revealed that the company has blown through its entire 2026 Claude Code budget, with R&D expenses rising 9% to $3.4 billion in 2025. Despite this budget overrun, Uber has no plans to slow down engineer hiring. The company has seen dramatic adoption of AI in their development process, with 11% of live code updates now written by AI agents, up from a fraction of a percent just three months ago. Uber's CTO envisions a future where AI agents take on the full role of software engineers, transforming the field into AI agent engineering. The company has embraced AI prototyping across teams, leading to greater exploration of ideas, faster alignment on products, and unblocked execution. Anthropic released updates to Claude Code including a new desktop app with sidebar functionality, terminal integration, and a new 'routines' feature for automated workflows. Google responded with their own AI Studio updates featuring design previews for app development and a new Gemini desktop app built using anti-gravity technology. The Stanford AI Index report revealed that one-third of surveyed organizations expect AI to reduce their workforce, though some tech leaders like Mark Anderson argue AI will create a jobs boom. Square's Block revealed ManagerBot, an agentic layer in merchant dashboards that proactively manages inventory, scheduling, and marketing, leading users to consolidate more business operations onto Square's platform.
About this episode
Uber's CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga has maxed out his entire 2026 AI budget just months into the year - and it's almost entirely down to Claude Code. We break down what that means, why 11% of Uber's live code updates are now being written by AI agents, and why he's still not slowing down on hiring engineers. We also cover Anthropic's new Routines feature in Claude Code, Google's design previews in AI Studio plus their new Gemini desktop app, and Square's bold new Manager Bot — an agentic layer built directly into merchant dashboards that could cannibalise its own third-party developer ecosystem. As always, let me know what you think in the comments! ➡️ More analysis on the newsletter on Substack: https://departmentofproduct.substack.com/ ➡️ Follow me on Substack Notes: https://substack.com/@richholmes 🔗 Links mentioned in this video Uber & AI Uber CTO Claude Code budget story (The Information): https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/applied-ai/uber-cto-shows-claude-code-can-blow-ai-budgets How AI prototyping transformed Uber's product development: https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/ai-prototyping/ Anthropic Claude Code Routines announcement: https://claude.com/blog/introducing-routines-in-claude-code Anthropic multi-agent coordination patterns: https://claude.com/blog/multi-agent-coordination-patterns Square Managerbot Square Managerbot help article: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8617-use-managerbot-to-manage-business-tasks-and-insights VentureBeat deep-dive on Managerbot: https://venturebeat.com/data/block-introduces-managerbot-a-proactive-square-ai-agent-and-the-clearest Google Gemini desktop app for Mac: https://gemini.google/mac/ Chrome Gemini Skills (The Verge): https://www.theverge.com/tech/911658/google-chrome-gemini-ai-skills-availability-launch Data & Reports Stanford AI Index 2026 (400+ pages): https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report Say No as a Service: https://github.com/hotheadhacker/no-as-a-service
Key Insights
- Uber's CTO says 11% of the company's live code updates are now written by AI agents, up from just a fraction of a percent three months ago
- Anthropic is reportedly working on a secret design tool that could rival Adobe and Figma, positioning them to disrupt multiple parts of the product development process
- Block found that sellers using ManagerBot are voluntarily migrating more business operations onto Square's platform to feed the agent more data, creating a strategic consolidation effect
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Uber's CTO says he's blown his entire Claude Cord budget for 2026, [music] but despite that, he has no plans to slow down hiring engineers. As you'll no doubt be aware of by now, over the past few weeks, there's been a growing trend within tech circles around the concept of token maxing, where engineers are encouraged internally to spend as much as required to get the job done. In Uber's case, it looks as though some engineers may have taken this idea a bit too far. In an interview with the information, Nepali Naga says Uber's research and development expenses, which [0:31] typically reflect company's cost of developing new AI products, rose 9% to $3.4 billion in 2025…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from Department of Product
Is ChatGPT Work a Claude Killer? OpenAI’s Big Week Unpacked…
OpenAI released ChatGPT Work, GPT Live, and new GPT-5.6 models this week, positioning itself to compete with Anthropic's Claude in the enterprise market. While the products appear polished with strong features like app screenshots and voice capabilities, OpenAI's decision to brand everything under ChatGPT rather than maintaining separate product identities risks confusing enterprise users and developers.
OpenAI’s Ad Business Could Hit $102B by 2030
OpenAI is projected to generate $102 billion in ad revenue by 2030, representing 36% of its total revenue. The company is drawing internal comparisons to Netflix's successful ad tier launch. Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman is also navigating a legal battle with Elon Musk.
Stripe's AI Agents Can Spend Your Money — And Spotify's War on Slop
This weekly tech briefing covers Stripe's new AI-powered payment tools and agent wallet, Spotify and Reddit's push for human verification against AI-generated content, and Uber's expansion into a general travel platform. It also touches on new AI model benchmarks for design, shifting SaaS pricing models, and OpenAI's reported pivot toward an ad-supported revenue strategy.
Google vs OpenAI: The Workplace Agent Coworker War Has Started
Google and OpenAI both launched workplace AI agents in the same week, signaling an intensifying battle for enterprise productivity dominance. The video also covers Shopify's AI-generated UI experiment, OpenAI Codex's rapid growth, and a Bain report revealing that 89% of AI search citations come from third-party sources rather than brand-owned content.
Claude Mythos is Too Dangerous to Use
Anthropic has released Claude Mythos Preview, a powerful AI model with exceptional coding abilities that's restricted to select partners due to security risks. The model can find zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits, leading to Project Glasswing - a $100 million initiative to address security concerns before wider release.