The AI Value Question Has an Answer Now

Uber burned through their entire 2026 AI budget in four months. Their COO's honest assessment: "It's very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, 'Okay, now we're actually producing 25% more useful consumer features.'"

That line lands because I hear it constantly in client conversations. Not every client, but enough. The tokens are flowing. The invoices are growing. The question nobody can quite answer yet is: what are we getting for this?

Our teams are in those environments. We're deploying these tools, measuring outcomes, and trying to help clients build a case for the spend that isn't just vibes and velocity metrics. It's genuinely hard work. The productivity gains are real in some places and invisible in others. The measurement frameworks are still being invented.

Which is why Cognition's move with Devin caught my attention. They just launched an AI Productivity Guarantee: if Devin doesn't deliver the engineering value you're paying for, they'll fund your usage until it does, up to $10 million. That's not a marketing promise. That's a contractual bet on the measurability of their own product.

Think about what that requires on the backend. Cognition built a system that estimates human-equivalent engineering hours per session, with enough confidence to underwrite the guarantee financially. They've put a number on it. Not a squishy "transformation index" or an NPS score. An engineering hours equivalent.

The consulting side of my brain finds this fascinating because the accountability structure changes everything. When the vendor is financially exposed to the outcome, the conversation shifts. You're not negotiating ROI projections anymore. You're holding receipts.

Uber's problem wasn't adoption. They incentivized so hard that they blew the budget in four months. The problem was proof. Nobody could draw the line from tokens to features.

I think we're about to find out which AI vendors actually believe their own numbers.

What would it change in your organization if every AI vendor had to back their value claim with their own money?