Nigel Koh

We keep hearing the same thing on repeat: enterprise AI token costs are exploding and the spend is largely focused on a single vendor (OpenAI, Anthropic etc.) One example: orgs that were spending $500K/year in December are spending $15M/year in May.

And CFOs are starting to ask the same question: do we cut back AI spend, or cut heads?

2 significant things are circulating on the internet simultaneously this week:

• A tweet about how a human beat a machine (a 10-hour livestream in which a human sorted packages and compared it to the productivity of a robot).

• Or an announcement of a Microsoft AI chief that predicts AI will automate most white-collar work within 18 months.

While I don't think there will be a complete replacement of humans in either case, I do think we will see mass layoffs. My guess is that it will be white-collar jobs first.

Anthropic is rolling out weekly rate limits for Claude Code on Pro and Max plans starting August 28. They're saying it'll only affect ~5% of subscribers, the ones running Claude Code continuously in the background, plus a handful violating ToS by sharing or reselling accounts.

Link to article here.