Atlassian puts its engineers on an AI budget as the cost of ‘tokenmaxxing’ bites

The software maker cut thousands of jobs in the name of AI. Now it is handing the engineers who remain capped ‘AI wallets,’ a sign the industry’s token spending has become a line item to manage.

Atlassian has started giving its engineers a fixed monthly allowance for artificial intelligence, a capped “AI wallet” that warns them as they near the limit and stops when the budget runs out.

The move places the software company on the cost-conscious side of a growing divide over how much AI staff should be allowed to burn through.

The caps are not trivial, but they are caps. Atlassian’s wallets run from $500 to $2,000 a month for research-and-development staff, with the size set by role and the option to ask for more, a structure meant to keep spending visible rather than to starve it.

The company frames it as generosity with guardrails. “Atlassian provides a...

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