Apple cuts engineers’ daily AI budgets from $300 to $200

Apple is cutting the daily amount its engineering teams can spend on AI, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. It marks a significant change for a company that has worked to integrate the technology into its engineering processes.

In October, Apple lowered the daily AI spending cap for its engineering teams from $300 to $200, the outlet reported. More cuts are in the works, with some allowances falling to $100 a day, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg. Outside engineering, Apple is reportedly weighing a daily limit as low as $25 a day.

TechCrunch has reached out to Apple for comment.

Earlier this year, a wave of “tokenmaxxing” took hold, with companies pushing staff to use AI as much as possible in the name of vaguely defined efficiency gains. The frenzy was short-lived, however, as bills for those tokens came due and companies decided that rationing them might be a more fiscally sensible approach.

Concerns persist about an apparent gap between what AI costs to build and run and the often unclear productivity gains the technology is supposed to generate.