The Pulse: AI token spending out of control – what’s next?
Details from 15 tech companies on the rapid growth of token spend, and their responses to it. Also: AI vendors can’t keep up with demand, plummeting morale at Meta, and more.
Hello from Florida – today and tomorrow, I’m at React Miami. I’ve always wanted to attend this conference, and finally made it happen. If you’re around, say hi!
Let’s get to today’s topics:
New trend: token spend breaks budgets – what next? In the past 2-3 months, spending on AI agents has exploded at many tech companies, and the ramifications of this are starting to dawn on engineering leaders. We’ve sourced details from 15 companies, including the different ways they are coping with this realization.
New trend: more AI vendors can’t keep up with demand. Related to massively increased spending, GitHub Copilot and Anthropic are starting to limit less-profitable individual users, so they can serve business users whose spend has easily 10x’d in the last few months. The exception is OpenAI and Codex.
Morale at Meta hits all-time low? Business is booming but devs at Meta are furious and worried due to looming layoffs, and an invasive tracking program rolled out to all US employees.