Apple has cut the daily artificial intelligence spending allowance for some of its engineers from 300 dollars to 200 dollars, Bloomberg reported on 4 November, as the company tightens control over the cost of the AI tools its own staff use.

The change took effect in October, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter. Apple declined to comment. Further reductions are under consideration: some engineering teams could see their daily cap fall again to 100 dollars, while some teams outside engineering, many of which already work to a 100-dollar daily limit, could be cut to as little as 25 dollars a day.

What the allowances pay for

The allowances cover AI tokens, the units of data processed by models including Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Coding and debugging work can consume large numbers of tokens, particularly when tools repeatedly analyse large codebases, so a daily cap is a direct brake on how much AI assistance an engineer can use in a day.

Employees who need more capacity can reportedly seek exemptions from senior executives, and some employees told Bloomberg that few colleagues had been using their full 300-dollar allowance. That means the cut may save Apple less than the headline figure suggests: an engineer spending 150 dollars a day would be unaffected, while one spending 250 dollars would lose 50 dollars of daily capacity unless an exemption is granted.

Part of a wider squeeze on AI costs

Apple is not alone in rationing internal AI use. Tesla has a 200-dollar weekly limit for employees, Uber has a 1,500-dollar monthly limit, and Meta has encouraged staff to use the company's own tools, according to the Bloomberg reporting. The pattern reflects a problem many large employers now face: AI tools are genuinely useful, but their usage-based pricing makes costs hard to predict. A survey reported in October found that only 11 percent of almost 400 businesses said they could accurately forecast their AI spending.

Employee reaction to Apple's move has been mixed, the report said. Some staff saw it as a sensible response to runaway token bills, while others worried it signalled broader cost-cutting that could lead to layoffs.

Not a cut to research spending

The reported caps should not be confused with a retreat from AI investment. Apple's fiscal 2026 annual report, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 3 November, shows research and development spending of 45.8 billion dollars, up about 32 percent from 34.55 billion dollars the previous year, driven in part by infrastructure costs including AI investment.

The distinction matters. Apple is spending more than ever on research while asking individual employees to spend less on day-to-day AI assistance. Whether the tighter caps slow engineering work or simply trim unused headroom will depend on how often engineers hit the new ceiling, and Apple has not disclosed the usage figures that would settle the question.

All of the figures in this story are reported rather than confirmed: they come from Bloomberg's sources, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private, and Apple has not commented publicly.