Apple is reportedly cutting budgets for its internal AI usage
Apple is reportedly cutting budgets for its internal AI usage
According to Bloomberg, Apple lowered the daily AI spending cap for its engineering teams from $300 to $200 in October, with some allowances set to drop further to $100 per day. The report says Apple is also considering limits as low as $25 per day for departments outside engineering, reflecting a shift toward controlling usage amid a gap between AI costs and productivity gains.
In Brief
Posted:
5:26 PM PST · November 4, 2026
Apple is cutting the daily amount its engineering teams can spend on AI, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. It’s a big 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, decreasing it from $300 to $200, the outlet reported. And more cuts are in the works, with some allowances falling to $100 a day, sources tell 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 tsunami 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 said tokens came due, and companies decided that token rationing 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 suppose to generate.
Source: TechCrunch · AI · techcrunch.com