Why it matters
Accenture is a bellwether: when a firm that sells AI transformation to clients starts rationing its own token budget, the message is that unchecked usage is a cost problem, not a productivity win. Engineers keep access; casual users get cut first.
Tokenmaxxing read
The tell is who gets throttled: engineers keep the keys while non-engineers lose them. That is crude role-based routing done with policy instead of a router, and it started only after Accenture's Feb 2026 usage dashboards turned token counts into a game staff played to win.
Source takeaway
Justice Kwak, Accenture's agentic AI strategy lead, called this an inflection point: spend has turned unpredictable and leaders are questioning returns, right down to the PDF-to-slides busywork the firm now wants people to stop pushing through models.
