Microsoft has reduced the monthly AI spending limit for most employees in its Cloud & AI division from $100,000 to approximately $10,000. This decision follows reports of excessive usage, including one instance where a single employee spent $28,000 on AI tokens within 28 days.
The company is also tightening control over internal spending on Anthropic's Claude models. The projected annual internal expenditure on Claude was reduced from over $1 billion to less than $670 million. Microsoft has intensified the tracking of daily AI usage and introduced strict token budgets for individual departments.
The shift is driven by high token costs and a strategic move to prioritize internal tools like GitHub Copilot, which utilizes OpenAI models that do not incur usage fees for Microsoft. Similar to Microsoft, Meta has reduced its internal usage of Claude Code by 50%.
Despite the cuts to internal consumption, overall payment commitments to Anthropic remain near peak levels due to growing customer-facing demand for Claude through Microsoft products. The company is effectively shifting its spending from internal operations to commercial offerings.
