In a recent interview, Instagram head Adam Mosseri suggested that Meta may need to impose limits on AI token spend for employees within a year or two. He noted that the cost of processing AI prompts could become comparable to an engineer’s salary, making budget caps essential. 'I think that you can imagine, at least in a year or two … that the burn rate of a strong engineer might be the same as their salary, or their cost of employment,' Mosseri said on Lenny’s Podcast. 'And in that world, you’re going to probably need to put in some caps.'
AI token spend, which refers to the cost of processing AI prompts and responses, has become a significant concern for companies. Meta shut down an internal leaderboard for AI token spend after costs threatened to push the company toward billions in 2026. Other companies like Uber and Microsoft have also faced similar issues, with Uber exceeding its 2026 AI coding budget by April and Microsoft canceling Claude Code licenses due to soaring token costs. Mosseri compared managing AI token budgets to handling other business resources like payroll or operating expenses.
Meta currently has no token caps for employees, but Mosseri believes such limits could become necessary in the future. He explained that token budgets would need to be proportional to how much the company trusts an engineer’s ability to use the budget in an 'ROI-positive' way. He also mentioned that the company has reduced token costs by eliminating 'silly things' like the leaderboard. 'It’s not that hard to build a token incinerator, and that doesn’t create a lot of value,' he said.
Source: techcrunch
