Several major US corporations are trying to curb their employees' use of AI or at least steer them towards less powerful models for certain tasks to reduce costs. This is reported by the US magazine 404 Media, citing internal documents and reports from various companies, including Atlassian, Adobe, and Amazon. For example, the financial group Citi temporarily blocked access to the newer AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI for several days and recommended via email which model should be used for which tasks. Citi has since denied this step to 404 Media, “although the email and other screenshots clearly show Citi blocking access to certain models”.
“Crazy” Reversal
According to the report, Atlassian recently stopped unlimited AI use by employees and instead launched an internal overview where they can see how much their AI usage costs the company. According to internal data, the costs for AI tools at the company have tripled from 5 million US dollars, and 120 million are expected to be accumulated throughout the year. Atlassian has denied this, but did not specify which of the figures originating from internal documents are incorrect. At Adobe, unlimited use was reportedly discontinued at the end of June, with “employees essentially being told to try to get everything they can done before that date instead”.
