Companies that raced to put AI tools in the hands of their workers are starting to rein in their use, as the cost of deploying the technology at scale begins to test corporate budgets.
Amazon, Walmart, Cisco, Uber and Meta are among early adopters that have introduced caps, discouraged wasteful use or pushed employees to cheaper models in a bid to keep AI spending under control.
The shift marks a new phase in corporate AI adoption. As workers move beyond chatbots to AI agents, which can perform complex tasks autonomously but require far more computing power, companies are being forced to scrutinise whether each query and task is worth the cost.