Anthropic's Token Billing Exposes AI's Missing ROI

Anthropic shifted enterprise customers to token-based billing in Q1 2026. One customer spent $500 million in a single month on its models without spend limits. Uber burned its full 2026 AI budget by April and could not link AI use to consumer product improvements. Microsoft canceled Claude Code usage due to $500 to $2,000 monthly per engineer costs. The shift revealed a gap between AI spending and measurable business outcomes.