SAP Freezes Travel and Hiring Amid Soaring AI Costs
404 Media · rss · 2026-08-07
Software giant SAP announced in an internal email that it has suspended most travel and hiring due to soaring AI investments and token costs, with exceptions made only for core AI roles and directly related business travel.
The report highlights that as enterprise AI tools scale, compute and token expenses are becoming a massive financial burden. To manage these costs, major corporations like Citi, Atlassian, Adobe, and Microsoft have implemented restrictions, including revoking access to certain models, ending unlimited use, and setting budget caps. Some companies have even forced AI assistants to talk like "cavemen" to truncate verbose responses and cut down token consumption.
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