While Silicon Valley engineers compete on leaderboards to burn the most AI tokens, the oldest bank in the United States is taking a decidedly different approach. BNY Mellon’s CFO Dermot McDonogh says the firm doesn’t waste time tracking how many AI prompts its employees fire off, calling token costs “modest within modest” relative to broader engineering spend.
The anti-tokenmaxxing playbook
Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn reported that some big tech companies turned token consumption into a status symbol, with engineers urged to climb usage leaderboards. McDonogh told Fortune’s newsletter that this framing “never took hold” inside BNY. The firm is more interested in what AI actually produces for the business than in how many tokens it burns getting there.
The bank spent $3.8 billion on technology in 2025, representing 19% of its total revenue. Despite modest workforce reductions, the bank is focused on revenue growth and boosting per-employee performance.
The digital asset custody play
