Oh, the tokensthose small units of text that have become the currency of the AI boom. A few months ago, Silicon Valley companies jumped into arms of the tokenmaxxing: Spending tokens like there was no tomorrow, because that meant you were being more productive. Well, there are already companies putting on the brakes because it is costing them a fortune.
The tokenomics. There are already several technology companies that are showing concern because spending on tokens is being excessive and they have even begun to introduce usage limits to control it. Meanwhile, they count on Wired that others like 8×8 and Baseball Lifestyle 101 continue with the tap open, although with nuances, such as that the use of more expensive models must be justified. It is the new obsession of the sector: tokenomicswhich we could translate by tokenomics or, if we want to be clearer, token economy.
Who runs a lot, soon as the saying goes. Of the tokenmaxxingsuddenly we went to tokenwasting and there are companies in serious problems because of this phenomenon, like the company that “accidentally” spent $500 million on Claude in a single month. We also have the case of Meta, which went from unbridled use to a strict management and rationing policy because the bill rose to billions annually or the Royal Bank of Canada, whose use of tokens has increased by 500% so far this year.
A growing concern. A year ago, it was rare to hear the word token in an earnings call, but today it is among the main financial concerns of companies. According to data from Wired, in April and May at least 300 companies expressed concern about the issue, while in the same period last year only 93 companies mentioned it. During Cisco’s earnings call, CEO Chuck Robbins he said it very clearly: “Token usage is getting pretty, pretty crazy.” Behind this statement there is constantly fluctuating prices and increasingly more powerful models (and also more expensive)
where we come from. In March of this year, Jensen Huang started talking about AI tokens as a productivity indicatorgoing so far as to say that he would be concerned if a high-level engineer did not spend at least half of his salary on AI tokens. What followed were companies encouraging their employees to consume more tokensriding internal competitions (that some rigged) and a bill that kept increasing. What we are seeing now is how that “spend as much as you can” is transforming into “spend wisely.” The question is whether in the middle of this game there is someone really measuring the value of the work that is produced.
Image | Xataka with Gemini
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