Enterprise AI Spending Hits a Reckoning as Companies Demand Proof of Returns

Companies that rushed to adopt generative AI in 2024–2025 without measurement frameworks are now facing budget reviews where vendors must prove productivity gains. Uber exhausted its entire 2026 AI budget in four months by June, then capped employee spending after its COO stated the company could not connect rising token costs to customer-facing features. Meta similarly shut down its internal AI leaderboard in April after usage metrics leaked publicly. The pattern signals a shift: enterprise buyers are moving from "are you using AI?" to "what measurable value did it deliver?"