Apple cuts daily AI spending limits for its engineering teams
Apple has reportedly reduced the daily amount its engineering teams may spend on AI tools, according to Bloomberg. The cap fell from $300 to $200 in October, with deeper cuts reportedly planned.
Apple, the US consumer technology company, is lowering the daily budget its engineering teams can spend on artificial intelligence (AI), Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, November 4. The change is significant for a company that has worked to build the technology into its engineering processes.
What is changing
According to Bloomberg, Apple reduced the daily AI spending cap for engineering teams in October, from $300 to $200. Sources told the outlet that further cuts are being prepared, and some allowances could drop to $100 a day.
Outside engineering, Apple is reportedly considering a daily limit as low as $25. TechCrunch has asked Apple for comment.
Wider context
TechCrunch notes that earlier this year a trend dubbed "tokenmaxxing" spread across companies, which urged staff to use AI as much as possible in the name of loosely defined efficiency gains. The rush proved short-lived: bills for the tokens arrived, and companies concluded that rationing them might be the more financially sensible approach.
Concerns also persist about an apparent gap between the cost of building and running AI and the productivity gains the technology is supposed to deliver, which are often unclear.
