Post by ICONIQ

Tokenmaxxing does not necessarily translate to AI impact. Across ~300 organizations, our latest State of AI Survey found that R&D accounts for the highest internal AI spend across functions. Among companies with more than 1,000 employees, 36% now spend more than $1 million per month on internal-facing AI tools. But token usage is not proving to be a reliable predictor of success. High consumption can show adoption, but it does not show whether teams are shipping faster, improving quality, or creating measurable value. Cost is also getting harder to forecast. Token spend was the most common source of budget overruns in our survey, and spend appeared to compound quietly as teams move from single calls to multi-step agents. Some of the companies furthest along treat usage as a cost to control and gauge AI's performance through outcomes like cycle time, deploys per week, and revenue per employee. More in our June Chart of the Month. *For educational purposes for company founders and executives. This is not investment advice or an offer to invest. Refer to Outreach Disclaimer link in profile.