Apple Cuts Daily AI Spending Limits for Some Employees

Apple has begun lowering the daily AI spending limits it sets for employees, according to people familiar with the matter. The daily budget for some engineers was quietly reduced last month from $300 to $200, and the company is reportedly planning to take it as low as $100 for certain engineering teams.

The move is seen as part of a broader cost-cutting effort led by Apple CEO John Ternus. The people who described the changes asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.

Which limits are changing

According to the reports, some engineers saw their daily cap fall from $300 to $200 last month, and Apple plans to cut it to $100 for some engineering teams. Many groups outside engineering already operate under a $100 daily limit, and Apple is said to be weighing a reduction to $25 for some teams.

Employees who need a larger budget will be able to request an exception from senior management. It is not yet clear which tools are affected by the new restrictions. Apple employees reportedly have access to a range of AI services, including Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Some teams are also said to be encouraged to use cheaper models, or models that run locally on-device, to keep costs down.

A pullback from token maximalism

Over the past year, Silicon Valley has embraced "tokenmaxxing," the practice of consuming as many AI tokens as possible as a sign of productivity. At companies such as Meta, informal internal leaderboards even ranked employees by token usage. The trend gained momentum as tools like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and Cursor spread among software developers.

As the cost of AI tools has climbed, however, companies have begun to question whether the productivity gains justify the spending. Accenture, for example, has reportedly cut its centrally funded Claude allowance to $29 per employee per month, with any spending above that expected to come out of project or team budgets.

Mixed reactions as overall spending rises

Employee reaction to the new limits is reportedly mixed. Sources say few employees were using their full $300 daily allowance in the first place. Others see the cuts as a sign of wider cost-cutting and say worries about possible layoffs are growing.

The reductions also come as Apple's overall spending is rising. In the fiscal year that closed with the fourth-quarter 2026 results the company announced this week, R&D expenses grew 32 percent to $45.8 billion, with infrastructure and AI costs said to be part of the increase. Given that some employees were not using their full limits anyway, how much the new restrictions will actually save Apple remains unclear.