At the tech firm 8x8, employees are using Anthropic’s Claude to boost productivity. While their finance team remains blissfully unaware of rising costs, other giants like Meta and Uber have started introducing usage caps due to ballooning expenses.

The phenomenon, dubbed “tokenomics,” has seen Royal Bank of Canada’s CEO report a 500% increase in token usage over six months. Chuck Robbins at Cisco calls it 'pretty, pretty crazy,' while Amplitude's engineers are reportedly spending thousands on tokens each month.

Executives are devising ways to monitor and manage AI budgets, balancing tech adoption with financial prudence. Some companies, like Baseball Lifestyle 101 in New York, have encouraged heavy AI use among top managers, seeing promising returns from increased productivity.

At 8x8, employees check their AI usage regularly but no caps are yet enforced. Chief Transformation Officer Joel Neeb remains optimistic, attributing recent gains in customer satisfaction and revenue partly to AI. He foresees challenges ahead as the company integrates more complex tasks with Claude.