Tech Companies Track Employee Token Consumption

Companies including Meta, OpenAI and Shopify use internal leaderboards and token metrics to measure employee AI usage, Kevin Roose reported in the New York Times this month. The practice coincides with features and tools such as Claude Code channels and agentic platforms like OpenClaw, and extreme volumes: one engineer consumed 210 billion tokens while GPT-5.4 reportedly processes 5 trillion tokens per day. The trend could shift engineering incentives and costs.