Aug 25, 2026 – 2.14pmToken maxxing is out; token budgeting is in. After a wild couple of years of encouraging employees to experiment with artificial intelligence in every way possible to improve their productivity, businesses have realised that using AI costs money, and many of them have little to show for it.A whopping 93 per cent of respondents to a May 2026 McKinsey survey of US enterprises were exceeding their AI budgets, with a few running over by more than 51 per cent. Australia is slightly better off, with the figure closer to a third of businesses going overboard on AI, according to research from software company Elasticsearch.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Emma McGrath-CohenReporterEmma McGrath-Cohen is a journalist for The Australian Financial Review. Message Emma on Signal @emmamc.26Fetching latest articles
Five simple ways to stop blowing through your AI budget
As companies crack down on AI spending, the most successful workers will learn how to get the same high-impact results with fewer tokens.
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