Why it matters
Agentic AI makes token burn continuous and less predictable, so cost governance becomes an operational requirement (not just a finance afterthought). The fastest path to savings is observability: instrument token usage like cloud spend.
Tokenmaxxing read
The trend is evolving from maximizing tokens to maximizing token cost-effectiveness—dashboards, budgets, and model/tooling choices that reward useful work per token rather than raw consumption.
Source takeaway
DBR points to internal usage leaderboards and extreme token-spend anecdotes as early warning signs. It also describes a wave of dashboards and tracking systems that treat token efficiency as the real KPI for AI-heavy teams.

