Companies are scrambling to stop employees from maxing out AI budgets with small tasks | TechCrunch

After cloud spending, IT companies see 'token maxxing' as AI's next cost challenge

IT services firms warn of "token maxxing" — treating token consumption as primary metric risks uncontrolled AI costs, with enterprises measuring adoption through usage rather than business outcomes. Outcome-based pricing and metering become critical as companies scale agentic AI projects, shifting focus from token volume to measurable ROI.