Uber already burned its 2026 AI budget

In ancient Greece, killing a dolphin could get you killed.

Dolphins were sacred to Apollo and Poseidon, so harming one was treated like a religious crime on the level of killing a person.

As it should. Leave the ocean genius alone.

What’s in store:

Read Time: 5 minutes

OPENAI

Pricing the spreadsheet

OpenAI is reportedly considering major price cuts as competition with Anthropic gets sharper.

The company is looking at lowering token prices, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tokens are what AI firms use to charge customers for using their models.

The move comes as OpenAI expects Anthropic may also cut prices.

For businesses, AI bills are becoming harder to ignore.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said costs had become “a huge issue,” adding that the company wants to help users get more value for less money.

That would be great for customers, but less cheerful for AI companies already spending billions on the computing power needed to run their systems.

OpenAI is also trying to gain ground on Anthropic in the enterprise market.

Anthropic has grown quickly after Claude Code became popular with software engineers, while OpenAI has been pushing its own coding tool, Codex.

The main takeaway:

IPO nerves rise

Some companies are now questioning whether heavy AI use is worth the cost.

Uber executives have reportedly said the company had already used up its 2026 budget for agentic AI, while others are asking whether AI coding gains are actually leading to better customer features.

This has fuelled debate around “tokenmaxxing”, the habit of using as many AI tokens as possible to boost productivity.

Useful? Sometimes. Expensive? Very much yes.

A price war would test both companies’ business models as they move closer to public listings.

OpenAI has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO, following Anthropic’s own steps towards going public.

The funniest part of the AI boom is watching billion-dollar labs discover that CFOs are the final boss.- MG

MASTER AI COMMUNICATION

Shining Examples of Skillful Commands

If you keep on feeding AI questions, and it keeps on churning out crud, then you probably need to up the specificity. 

See our AI Prompting Guide with Tina Huang for concrete samples of bad, passable, and excellent directions, like: 

Get the guide on getting to the point.

AI or Real?

I sneezed just looking at it. Pollenmaxxing.

Anyway, is it real or not?

The correct answer is at the bottom of the email!

AI TECH

They’re done watching us scroll

DoorDash is launching a new AI chatbot that lets users order food, groceries and restaurant bookings using text prompts, photos or recipe links.

The feature, called Ask DoorDash, is designed for people who know they’re hungry but do not have the emotional strength to scroll through 47 menus.

Users can describe what they want, upload a grocery list, share a recipe, or ask for a table at a specific time.

DoorDash can then suggest restaurants, build grocery carts, add the right quantities, and check whether users already have basics like sugar or butter.

For food orders, users can ask for something like a filling dinner for four, then narrow results by budget, diet, group size or past orders.

For reservations, they can ask for a table for two downtown around 8 PM and refine the search from there.

In brief:

AI joins takeaway

DoorDash is joining a wider AI push in food delivery and shopping, with Uber Eats and Instacart also adding AI-powered assistants.

Ask DoorDash is rolling out on iOS in select regions for restaurant search, groceries and reservations, with more US users getting access in the coming weeks.

Are you calling me indecisive, DoorDash?! Because I am lol.- MG

Mindstream Picks

Space: Scientists are refining the design of NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory to maximise its ability to detect signs of life on Earth-like exoplanets.

Business: Ryanair is being investigated over charges that require parents to pay extra to sit with their children on flights.

Music: Noel Gallagher has criticised plans for the World Cup’s first-ever halftime show, arguing football doesn’t need a concert spectacle.

Don’t Miss: The Weather Channel app has introduced new allergy-tracking features that go beyond pollen counts, factoring in weather conditions like wind and humidity that can worsen symptoms. Premium users will also get hyperlocal forecasts, species-specific pollen insights, and tools to track symptoms over time.

AI Art

Image of the Day

Yesterday’s Poll

“Should powerful AI models launch with strict safeguards from day one?”

Yes, lock the spicy cupboards - 83% ✅

No, let users cook - 17%

Your Views:

“It is always easier to loosen safe-guards later if is a necessity, but harder to tighten those not-so-tight safe-guards because of malicious usage. Always err on the side of security” - gray.we

“Yes, we need to have patience and learn to work with them so that we can learn along side of them and cause the least amount of harm to the AI as well from misuse and For humanity” - Name

“What is locked must be narrowly tailored to stop actual harm, not "perceived" harm (too subjective)” - john

Submit your opinions in our polls to be featured!