'That doesn't sound very healthy': Amazon's reported AI tokenmaxxing draws scrutiny from analyst | Fortune

"Amazon employees are now joining the ranks of those "tokenmaxxing" at their boss' request, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. Only these Amazon employees are more resistant-they've reportedly been running the company's internal AI tool on trivial tasks to inflate their token counts and climb the leaderboard measuring their usage."

""Tokenmaxxing" is a burgeoning trend at the hyperscalers where employers are rewarding employees for using AI the most, quantified by using tokens. While it isn't clear that the usage determines much more than brownie points at Amazon, similar behavior was reported other big hyperscalers, like Microsoft and Meta. Notably, all three of these companies are heavily invested in the very tech that they're encouraging their employees to use."

"Gil Luria, head of technology research at brokerage D.A. Davidson, said the dynamic concerned him. "That doesn't sound very healthy," Luria told Fortune. "You get the behavior that you create the incentive for. So if you tell people they'll succeed if they use a resource more, of course they'll use it more.""

"Luria clarified that, for him, there isn't a question that AI tools are very powerful and have the opportunity to make everyone more productive. But the "hurdle," so-to-speak, is in diffusion. "Humans are rigid in how they do things," Luria said. "So if you don't create an incentive for humans to change their behavior, try something new, most of us won't.""

Amazon employees reportedly use the company’s internal AI tool on trivial tasks to increase token counts and rank higher on usage leaderboards. The practice, called tokenmaxxing, is described as a growing trend at hyperscalers where rewards are tied to AI usage measured in tokens. Similar behavior has been reported at Microsoft and Meta, companies that are also heavily invested in the AI technologies they encourage employees to use. A technology research head warns that incentives shape behavior, so rewarding more usage leads people to use resources more. The challenge is encouraging behavior change without gaming metrics, reflecting Goodhart’s Law. Amazon reportedly says tokenmaxxing does not affect performance reviews, but employees report otherwise.

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