AI i.e. Artificial Intelligence is currently the biggest buzzword in the world. Many companies are firing people just in the name of AI. But now the situation seems to be turning upside down. Many big companies are now forced to think after seeing the huge bill for AI. Earlier it seemed that AI would help in getting more work done for less money, but AI is so expensive that companies are losing their senses after seeing the bill.
Big companies are now using AI in everything from their everyday tasks to big decisions. But now this technology is also becoming a big expense for companies.
Microsoft to Uber worried over AI bill
According to the report of The Verge, recently Uber COO has said that AI is very expensive and it cannot be justified. Not only this, Microsoft has recently announced to end most of the subscriptions of Anthropic Claude. The reason given for this was its cost.
AXIOS’s report shocked the tech world. According to the report, a company spent about 500 million dollars i.e. about Rs 4200 crore on an AI tool in just one month. This tool is none other than Claude of the popular Anthropic.
This amount was so much that it created panic within the company. The news also came to light that when a senior official of the company came to know about this expenditure, he became very emotional. His crying video is going viral on social media. People are cursing him on social media. It is also being alleged that the company has fired people from jobs and is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
After all, how did such a huge expenditure happen?
Actually, the company had given complete freedom to its employees to use AI. Initially this decision seemed right, because with the help of AI the work was being done faster.
But the company made a big mistake. It did not decide who would use how much AI and to what extent. That means there was no restriction on use.
Gradually employees started using AI on a large scale. Someone got the code written, someone got big documents read, and someone got the work done by asking questions again and again. In this way the use of AI increased and the expenditure also increased rapidly.
AI is very expensive
It is important to understand how spending on AI occurs. AI systems charge money based on how much work you get them to do. If you ask short questions, the expenses are less. But if you give long data, read large files or get work done repeatedly, then the expenses increase very rapidly.
Credit system runs at industry level in AI. For example, Google or Open AI takes money and gives credits or tokens to the companies. If you are getting 10 lakh credit out of 1 crore rupees and it gets exhausted in a day, then you have to take credit again. That’s why it is more expensive than it seemed earlier.
According to the report, Uber finished its AI budget for 2026 in just four months. Actually, the budget of 3.4 billion dollars was for a year, but it was finished in just four months.
It costs a lot of credits to fix a mistake
According to the report, there were many people in the company who were continuously using AI. Especially those people who do coding and technical work, they used AI the most.
To complete a task, AI works repeatedly on its own. He first plans, then works, then finds the mistake and then corrects it. AI is used many times in this entire cycle.
This is the reason why an employee’s daily AI expenses reached thousands of dollars. Now if there are hundreds or thousands of such people in the company, then it can be estimated how fast the total expenses will increase.
AI even for small tasks
Another big reason was that employees used expensive AI systems even for small tasks. Even where simple work could be done easily, large and powerful systems were being run. This increased the expenses further.
Moreover, AI can now understand very large files and long data simultaneously. This feature makes the work easier, but it requires more powerful machines. This has a direct impact on expenditure.
The report also states that the company had not created a proper system to monitor its AI use. That means it was not known who was spending how much. If attention had been paid to this in the beginning itself, such a huge loss could have been prevented.
After this incident, other companies have now become alert. Now they are setting limits on AI use for their employees. Many companies are deciding which work should be done by AI and which should not. Some companies are also looking for cheaper options so that expenses can be reduced.
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