AI can cost more than human workers now

Uber's chief technology officer already blew through his full 2026 AI budget due to token costs, according to The Information. Amos Bar-Joseph, CEO of Swan AI, bragged about his Anthropic bill in a viral LinkedIn post, saying We're building the first autonomous business - scaling with intelligence, not headcount.Zoom out: Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach 6.31 trillion in 2026, up 13.5 from 2025, according to Gartner. That increase is being driven by sustained momentum across AI infrastructure, software and cloud services, which includes everything from the AI buildout to the cost of AI subscriptions. Yes, but: Even companies with the biggest IT budgets will need to prove returns on AI spending over time, especially if they're answering to shareholders on quarterly earnings calls. That could look like proof of productivity gains or metrics that show a clear return for all this AI investment. The tone is shifting a bit more into what is the true value of a worker... human or digital? said Brad Owens, vice president of digital labor strategy at Asymbl, which focuses on workforce orchestration. What we're watching: How rising costs impact enterprise spending at the major AI labs. An OpenAI investor told Axios that the shift could benefit them, since they view Codex as superior to Claude Code at maximizing tokens efficiently, cutting down on usage costs.Anthropic has changed its pricing to account for a spike in demand.The bottom line: When AI labs raise prices, big spending on AI could shift from a flex to a liability.