Microsoft Cracks Down on Excessive AI Usage Among Employees

A Microsoft employee in the Customer and Partner Solutions business spent $28,000 on AI tokens over a 28-day period, highlighting an issue of excessive AI usage among some workers.

Internal spreadsheets revealed that nearly 600 US employees reported their monthly AI usage, with around 350 sharing figures. The median usage was around $300 per employee per month, but some departments spent significantly more, such as CoreAI at $975 and Security at $526.

The company is now monitoring token consumption value more closely to track individuals who use large amounts of tokens, following years of encouragement to incentivize workers to use AI. This has led to a trend called 'tokenmaxxing', where users deliberately consume large amounts of tokens to become visible on tracking dashboards.