Apple is reportedly tightening how much its own employees can spend on AI tools each day. Some engineers who had a $300 daily allowance were moved to $200 in October, and more reductions may follow.
The next steps could be deeper: the allowance for some engineers could fall to $100, many groups outside engineering already work to a $100 limit, and some teams could be capped at just $25. Apple is also asking some teams to switch to cheaper models or to AI that runs on the device, and anyone who needs more can ask executives for a bigger budget.
The details come from a Bloomberg report, which MacRumors summarised. Engineers have the biggest budgets because AI coding tools use a lot of tokens. Apple lets staff use Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and other models, the report says. Some employees told the reporters that few people were using their full $300 anyway, so the saving may be small.
The cut sits alongside other cost checks. Apple has brought in outside productivity consultants for some divisions, and together with the AI limits that has fed worries about a restructuring. John Ternus became Apple’s chief executive on 1 September and is reported to want less hierarchy and fewer people doing more of the work, which is the context for trimming a cost that few staff were hitting.
Ternus has also spoken about where AI belongs in the products themselves: Apple’s new CEO says AI will go into products only when it helps. The figures come from employees quoted in the report and are not confirmed by Apple.
