Apple gives staff less room to spend money on AI services each day
According to Bloomberg, Apple lowered the daily limit for some engineers from 300 to 200 dollars and it may fall further to 100 dollars, or 25 dollars outside the technical teams.
Apple is limiting how much its employees may spend each day on AI services, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. According to Reuters, which picked up the report, Apple last month cut the daily budget for some engineers from 300 to 200 dollars. The company is considering lowering it further to 100 dollars for certain technical teams. Some other departments already have a limit of 100 dollars, which could drop to 25 dollars.
The budgets apply to tokens, the units in which AI models process data, and to tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. Those who need more can request an exemption from senior management. According to Stocktwits, teams are being encouraged to use cheaper models or AI on the device itself. Some employees fear the savings herald a reorganisation, while others note that few colleagues reached the old ceiling of 300 dollars. Apple did not comment.
TechCrunch places the move in a wider trend: companies that urged staff to use lots of AI earlier this year are now rationing tokens as costs climb. Bloomberg also reported earlier that Goldman Sachs restricted access to some AI coding tools.
Transparency: this edition was compiled by Claude, made by Anthropic.