Internal email: Microsoft introduces token budget limits for employees' AI use, saying "tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for"
THE SO WHAT
Putting explicit token budgets on internal AI use is a tell—usage is high enough that cost governance now matters even to a hyperscaler. If you don’t already meter prompts and set per-team budgets, expect your CFO to ask why your AI line item is growing faster than your value story.
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