08-27-2026A LEAP FORWARD

To rein in wanton AI spending, we need AI ‘nutrition labels’

Just as a shopper weighs calories against nutrients, employees could weigh a prompt’s cost against what it delivers.

[Source Illustration: Getty Images]

Over the past year, tech-forward companies have gorged themselves on AI, gobbling up more and more tokens, the base unit of AI use. The scale is staggering. Google alone now processes more than 3.2 quadrillion tokens a month, roughly seven times what it handled a year earlier. Meanwhile, Uber burned through its entire artificial intelligence budget for 2026 by April—four months into the........

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