THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • Bloomberg reports that Apple cut the daily AI spending cap for some engineers from $300 to $200 in October and is weighing $100 for some teams.
  • Some non-engineering groups already have a $100 daily cap, which could fall to $25; staff can ask senior leaders for exemptions.
  • Some teams are being steered toward cheaper models or models that run on the device; Apple has not commented publicly.

Apple has started tightening how much its employees can spend on AI tools, Bloomberg reported on 4 November, citing people familiar with the matter. The report, relayed by Reuters, 9to5Mac and The Next Web, describes daily budgets measured in tokens, the units of text that models such as Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini process and bill for.

What Bloomberg reports

Last month, Apple lowered the daily allowance for some engineers from $300 to $200, according to the report. Further reductions are planned for certain engineering teams, possibly down to $100 a day. Some non-engineering groups already work under a $100 daily cap, and Apple has considered cutting that to $25 for some teams. Employees who need more capacity can request an exemption from senior leadership.

9to5Mac notes it is unclear exactly which tools the limits cover. Some teams are being encouraged to switch to cheaper models or to models that run locally on the device. Apple did not respond to Reuters' request for comment, and The Next Web says the company declined to comment.

The change is presented as part of a wider cost drive under John Ternus, who became chief executive on 1 September. The Next Web reports that he has removed management layers and that some divisions have brought in consultants to review efficiency. Internal reaction is described as mixed: some staff say few people ever used the full $300, while others read the cuts as a sign of broader belt-tightening after more than 200 jobs were cut in August.

The bill behind AI coding tools

The figures give a rare view of what heavy use of AI assistants can cost per employee. Writing and debugging code consumes large numbers of tokens, so a cap of a few hundred dollars a day, multiplied across a large engineering staff, adds up quickly. At the same time, Apple's spending is rising overall: its annual report shows research and development costs up 32% in fiscal 2026, partly because of infrastructure and AI, according to 9to5Mac and The Next Web.

Apple is not alone in rethinking usage that many firms first encouraged. Reuters notes that Bloomberg recently reported Goldman Sachs had restricted access to some AI coding tools, and 9to5Mac and The Next Web report that Accenture caps its centrally funded Claude allowance at $29 per employee per month.

How much Apple will save is uncertain, since some employees were not using their full allowance. None of the figures has been confirmed by the company.