Apple Cuts Daily AI Budget for Its Engineers

Apple has sharply cut how much its engineers can spend on artificial intelligence (AI) tools each day. According to the financial news agency Bloomberg, the company lowered the daily AI tools budget from $300 to $200 in October. Some budgets are expected to be cut further still, down to $100. The tech giant is also considering limiting non-engineering departments to just $25 a day. The decision follows Apple's own recognition of a gap between what it spends on AI and the return on that investment, or ROI.

$300 a day for an AI assistant may sound like a lot. But much of that money gets spent on the model re-reading context, simply because a request was not phrased clearly enough. With a smaller budget, engineers will need to learn to phrase their requests more clearly and precisely.