Apple tightens AI spending limits for employees, cutting daily budgets for some engineers

Bloomberg reported that Apple is implementing stricter internal budgets for employee use of artificial intelligence tools to curb escalating AI operational costs. While the company aims to deepen AI integration across R&D and daily operations for efficiency gains, it is imposing tighter limits on token consumption for AI models. Sources indicated that last month, Apple reduced the daily AI spending cap for some engineers by 33%, lowering it from $300 to $200. Furthermore, plans are in place to potentially lower the minimum daily allowance for certain engineering teams down to $100. Non-engineering teams, whose initial allowance was $100, are also being considered for a reduction to $25, with exceptions available through senior management. These budgets cover token usage, which is tied to the volume of data processed by AI models. The company is encouraging the use of services like Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini, while simultaneously pushing some teams toward cheaper models or on-device AI solutions. This shift mirrors broader industry trends, with Microsoft also tightening internal AI spending, Tesla setting a weekly limit of $200 for employees, Uber capping monthly usage for one AI programming tool at $1,500, and Meta introducing token budgets and promoting proprietary tools.