I didn't mean 'no ROI', clearly AI is a productivity boost.
For the AI companies to IPO at the money they want, they have to promise that they are going to be worth many multiples more of that value.
But currently they are spending hundreds of billions and despite this their models are not light years ahead of each other, or of the companies with much lower budgets and compute power.
What they claim they can offer in future profits is subject to considerable debate.
It's in the interests of VC's and their underlying rich investors to hype it ip, IPO and bank the cold hard cash.
If Uber caps employee AI spend at $1500, then they've just admitted per employee AI spend on par with premium health care or commercial rent both in the 1000-1500 range, and this limited to just technical employees, i.e. subsect so presumably AI as % of business cost even lower. Health insurance 1T industry... commercial RE like 100 billion...
Anthropic thinks it's worth more than insuring all US workers AND putting roof over their heads. AI sector thinks its worth magnitude more in aggregate. If they fully displace people, i.e. untied to headcount eventually then sure, but if not, based on what Uber pays, AI is basically worth as much as insurance.
Shouldn't they have set that per-employee budget to zero instead?
(I dug up the original source for that Uber doubts the ROI story a few months ago, it's a lot weaker than the headlines about it suggested: https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/27/product-market-fit/#th...)