Why it matters
If leaders reward 'AI usage' instead of impact, consumption intensity becomes gameable and expensive. That inflates token bills, muddies capacity planning, and creates the wrong incentives for real productivity gains.
Tokenmaxxing read
Design AI adoption metrics like you would anti-fraud: combine outcome KPIs (cycle time, defect rate, customer impact) with spend KPIs (tokens/$ per workflow) and remove leaderboard dynamics that reward waste.
Source takeaway
Tom's Hardware summarizes reporting that Amazon set goals for most developers to use AI weekly and tracked tokens on internal leaderboards; some staff said they used an in-house agent tool (MeshClaw) to inflate usage and called the incentives perverse.
