Why it matters
WIRED counted ~300 companies fielding token questions on April-May earnings calls, up from 93 a year earlier. RBC's usage jumped 500% in six months, and Box CEO Aaron Levie says token budgeting is now the most heated boardroom topic.
Tokenmaxxing read
The split is the lesson: 8x8 says Claude let it cut ~$5M of legacy software for a smaller AI bill, while Baseball Lifestyle 101 tells managers to spend ~20% of salary on tokens. Tokenmaxxing pays only when spend maps to outcomes, so track ROI, not raw token counts.
Source takeaway
Strong original WIRED reporting with named executives and an AlphaStreet transcript count; figures like 8x8's savings are company estimates, not audited. Use it as the definitive June snapshot of enterprise token anxiety.
